


Out of the Woods

by wheel_of_fish



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Chickens, F/M, Fluff, Romance, cabin in the woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-11-21 15:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18144209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_of_fish/pseuds/wheel_of_fish
Summary: When a canoeing mishap leaves Christine stranded, she's forced into the wilderness for help—only to find a haunting stranger who does not want to be found.





	1. Eagle

Christine would always maintain that she'd have made it down the river just fine, thank you very much, were it not for the eagle.

Perhaps it had been shortsighted to canoe the trickier parts of the waterway in mid-November, but it wasn't unheard of, and she was hardly a novice.

Granted, it had been a good handful of years since she'd been up here. There had always been some reason or another not to join her dad at the cottage each summer, until he'd finally stopped asking.

How she regretted that now.

The riverbank this time of year was stripped of its vibrant green, but the air was crisp and fragrant with the sweet piney smell that she loved. The water was a deep, dull rust-brown under the gray sky. Its current was quiet, moving in ripples that trickled over rocks and gurgled softly around each bend.

She nudged her canoe around a fallen tree and sucked in a deep breath. There was still so much left to do before she headed back downstate: scrub the cottage floors, now that the furniture was gone. Clean the gutters and windows, sweep the shed, paint the kitchen, rake the yard, contact a local realtor. Was it worth staining and re-sealing the deck that had given her so many splinters as a kid? Should she sell the cottage now and get it over with, or wait until summer, when there would be more buyers?

No. She shouldn't think about those things just now. This would likely be her last trip down the river, after all. In fact, she should sell the canoe, along with its counterpart, both of which had made their home in the shed since long before she was born, back when Grandpa Daae and his brother had built the cottage with their own hands.

There were no homes or cottages lining this stretch of the bank, only wilderness. Likely she was in the national forest. She strained to remember how much farther it was to the landing in town, where she would paddle ashore and store her boat for the night before walking back to her hotel. It had been only mid-afternoon when she'd launched from the cottage, but perhaps she'd misjudged how much time she had, and how short the days had grown. Daylight was fading faster than she'd anticipated.

Christine paddled harder.

She'd begun sweating under her blue fleece jacket by the time she saw it: a bald eagle, arcing over distant treetops to fall in line with the river.

She hadn't seen an eagle since she was nine, before conservation efforts, when only one mated pair was rumored to nest along that stretch of river. She had thought the birds a myth until one cloudy afternoon when her dad called her out onto the wraparound porch. Spurred by the urgency in his voice, she'd tripped and stumbled over the door frame only to have a pair of binoculars pushed into her hands.

"Up there," he'd said, pointing. "Above the riverbend."

She'd felt a thrill run through her body at the sight of the raptor's massive wingspan. It had been clutching something in its talons: a fish, maybe, or a rodent.

"It's good luck to see an eagle," her dad had said. "It's a sign of change."

If only he'd lived long enough to hear about this one.

She stopped paddling just long enough to stare at its underbelly as it soared overhead: chocolate brown, almost black in the waning light, with large feathers at its wingtips as separate and distinct as human fingers. The white head and tail were unmistakable by contrast. Its breadth was as colossal as she remembered, and she gaped.

Without warning, the bow of the canoe pitched upward. She heard the terrible scrape of aluminum against rock as she was dumped over the side and into the icy river. The sharp cold seized her by the chest, tightening its grip until she thought she might never breathe again. Her leg rammed into something solid—the offending rock?—and the capsized canoe was right behind it, slamming her ankle against the rock's surface. Her cries were swallowed by a cruel and unflagging current.

She surfaced with a gasp and a searing headache. Miraculously, her glasses had stayed put, and her backpack drifted past her. She reached out to snatch it up, wincing at the white-hot strain of arm muscle as she curled her fingers around a strap.

The canoe lingered nearby: it had somehow righted itself, but now it was flooded. Her teeth chattered as she swam over. The paddle was gone; a cursory glance downriver saw it careening around the bend ahead. She'd never catch up.

Slowly, agonizingly, Christine dragged the hull onto the the riverbank, where she tipped it enough to dump out the water before dropping it onto the pebbled ground with an unceremonious  _thunk_. Every inch of her body throbbed. It hurt to put weight on her ankle. Her shivering was near violent, the chill of the air on her wet skin robbing her of breath. She peeled off her wet gloves and squirmed out of her life vest, chucking everything into the boat.

She opened her backpack to survey the damage. The bagel she'd pilfered from that morning's continental breakfast had gone soggy, its hasty paper-towel wrapping having partly dissolved. She tossed it aside, along with a banana now slick with river water.

Her phone was surprisingly dry: she'd at least had the foresight to pack it in a plastic zip bag. She pulled it out with shaking fingers and turned on the screen.

The status bar drew a desperate whimper from her throat.  _Of course_. She'd had no signal for half her stay so far; why would it be any different now, miles from civilization?

She turned in a weary circle, scanning the riverbanks for any signs of life. She was going to have to float downriver in a wet canoe, wasn't she? She could only hope she made it to the landing before it got dark and hypothermia set in.

But over the treeline behind her wafted a small sign of hope: smoke. It was a calculated risk, but she decided to follow it. She slung her pack over her shoulders and set off.

Leaves, dead and curled, crunched under her boots as she entered the woods. It was easy to see ahead, at least, among all the low shrub and strands of tall jack pine. The spindly trees were bare until almost two-thirds of the way up, where they erupted in a tuft of green needles. Growing up, she'd loved how the ample space between trunks made it it easy to spot deer and wild turkey from the road.

Her skin was starting to numb beneath the wet clothing. Her wet curls hung limp, darkened to a dirty blonde, and plastered themselves to the sides of her face and neck. She could barely feel her fingers. She was limping now, socks squelching in her boots all the while, and dusk was already setting in.

Christine tried to imagine herself in one of the wilderness survival books she'd loved as a kid— _Hatchet_ ,  _My Side of the Mountain_ ,  _Island of the Blue Dolphins_ —but she was far too cold for that kind of effort. The final straw was when she tripped over a jutting tree root and went sprawling across the forest floor, scraping her palms in the process. Tears streamed down her face as she pushed herself up and stumbled forward.

She had half a mind to head back to the canoe when a clearing appeared ahead, and within that, a cabin. It was made of dark wood and had no lights on, its silhouette ominous against a backdrop of darkening forest. But smoke curled out of the chimney in tendrils soft and fragrant, so she pressed on.

She came upon the back of the cabin first. Some distance from the back door, a pit ringed by rough-hewn slabs of rock held the charred remnants of an earlier bonfire. Off to its side, an axe rested on a tree stump. A neat wall of firewood, likely chopped on that same splitting block, was stacked against the back of the house. There was a distinct snap under her boot as she circled the fire pit to reach the front of the cabin, and she lifted her foot to investigate.

It was a bone. Or at least, it  _had_  been a bone, about the length of her hand, but the force of impact had cleaved it in two. It looked like it might be a rib, too small to be a human's. Or so she hoped. The pit of her stomach churned.

A crow cawed loudly in a tree overhead, and she jumped with a gasp.

It took a few seconds of recovery before she could will herself to pull it together. Animal bones, birds cawing: these were normal things that occurred in the woods, after all. But when a sharp gust of wind came whistling through the trees, her skin prickled and she clutched at her shoulder straps with white knuckles. She walked forward with her heart pounding anew.

The windows were darkened at the front of the cabin, the only sign of life a pair of muddied black combat boots drying on the covered wooden porch. On the opposite side of the porch was a small work table of weathered pine, cast into shadow by the sloping roof. Gingerly, she set her palm on a splintered handrail and climbed the steps.

She had just raised her knuckles to rap at the door when she saw the large knife atop the work table. It was flecked with dried blood.

No. No, she would just go back to the canoe and float the rest of the way, and she would figure out how to generate body heat through sheer force of will, like those Tibetan monks. She was already edging away from the door when it swung open.

The figure that met her was tall and angular, with black tactical pants tucked into military boots, and sinewy forearms exposed by the rolled sleeves of a navy blue shirt. The stranger's hands, sheathed in black fingerless gloves, were clutching a shotgun.

It was his face, however, that ripped the air from her lungs.

The skin was red and puckered and leathery, with waxy, misshapen ridges where the eyebrows should have been. His eyelids were partly melded with the thick skin around them, leaving narrow openings for the dark eyes that watched her with wild intensity. One side of his nose was twice the size of the other, as though a chunk had gone missing. And the right ear: that was missing completely. The only feature with some semblance of normalcy was a dark crop of tousled hair.

She knew how terrified she must look. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her teeth still clacking. "My canoe—I was—"

_Get out_ , screamed the voice in her head.  _Get out get out get out._

"You know what, never mind. I think...I think I'm good." Without waiting for a response, she stumbled back down the steps and took off in the direction of the river.

A moment later, there was a squeak of hinges and a slam of the door behind her. The crunch of heavy footsteps followed her into the forest. She broke into a run.

Only once did she dare glance back. The same dark figure trailed her through the brush, long legs striding at a brisk clip, shotgun still in hand. She ran faster. She winced at the pain that shot through her ankle with each step, at the burning in her lungs.

She was going to trip; she knew it. She was going to trip and go sprawling across the forest floor like every standard horror-movie victim, and her only legacy would be to have her mysterious disappearance featured in a true-crime documentary series and subsequently picked apart by amateur sleuths on the internet. Was her choice of an everything bagel at breakfast indicative of some larger dissatisfaction with her life's trajectory? Could her viewing of  _Top Gun_  the night before have meant she intended to join the Church of Scientology?

The river was within earshot now. But even if she made it to the canoe, she realized, she was still a sitting duck out on the water. She had no paddle; he had long limbs and a gun. She choked back a terrified sob as she stumbled into the clearing at the riverbank, and then she froze.

About twenty yards away was a bear: a hulking, mangy black bear, snuffling at the dirt around her canoe. Next to its front paw was a damp paper towel, the remnants of her discarded breakfast. She could have kicked herself for being so careless—but then, when did she ever need to worry about bears in the city?

The bear stopped foraging to turn on meaty haunches and look at her. She screamed.

Or at least, she started to scream, but a gloved hand at her mouth cut her off at a small shriek. A second hand clamped down on her shoulder, rooting her to the spot.

A man's voice curled into her ear, quiet and composed despite its inherent threat: "I would not do that if I were you."


	2. Bear

"I would not do that if I were you."

The voice was muffled somehow, and brusque, yet there was a baritone sensuousness to it that unnerved Christine more than the shotgun. "Let's not startle a natural predator, hmm?"

Her stalker removed the hand from her face but kept a light grip on her shoulder. She wasn't sure whether it was for his benefit or hers, so profusely was she shaking by this point.

She dared to glance back. He now wore a black ski mask, the kind with no mouth and a single wide opening for the eyes. On anyone else, it would have looked sinister. On him, it was a clear attempt to cover his face, and something inside of her softened.

Then again, he  _had_  just chased her through the forest.

The black bear huffed at them with disinterest and resumed its examination of her canoe. The masked man stepped forward, raising his voice. "Move along, then. Shoo."

Christine turned to balk at him. "You just said—"

"I said not to startle it. I'm being assertive."

"It's a  _bear_ ," she hissed.

"It's a coward," he retorted. "You could scare off a black bear with spray bottle. Statistically, you have a greater chance of being killed by bees." He took another step toward the animal. "Come on,  _scat_."

She stared after him with saucer-wide eyes. If there was one thing she was consistently terrified of, it was bees.

At his continuing approach, the bear lumbered along the length of the canoe, edging farther and farther away from them until finally, with another disgruntled huff, it shambled off into the forest. Dusk had fallen, and soon the hulking form of the bear was little more than a shadow against the trees. Christine considered running again, but her ankle still hurt and her teeth had picked up their chattering with even greater force.

"Wh-why were you following me?" she called to the man's back.

He turned to face her. He was tense and sharp and angular, the jut of his collarbone poking through the fabric of his shirt. "To keep you from expiring in the woods. There is nothing around here for miles, and you are soaked to the skin."

"I'll b-be fine."

"You're shaking."

"I j-j-just had a run-in with a b-bear."

He shook his head. "You need to come indoors."

She hugged her arms to her chest for warmth, to no avail. "I c-can't go back with you," she said.

"I am no more enthusiastic about the arrangement than you are," he replied, "but we will both regret it should you die of hypothermia."

"H-how hospitable."

He skewered her with a glare. " _You_  are the one who ran at the sight of my face." She swallowed her guilt as he gestured to his mask. "As you can see," he said, "I have covered it. You won't have to look at it again."

"You were h-holding a g-gun," she countered.

"A precaution."

"You have a bloody knife on your p-porch."

"To clean and fillet fish."

"Well it's-it's not exactly welcoming to v-visitors."

"I do not  _have_  visitors. Not until now, anyway. Come on, it's getting dark." He took off toward the cabin, leaving her to stand, shivering, beside the gloomy river. She glanced at her canoe and then back at his retreating form.

Well. If she was going to die either way, she might as well be warm.

He said nothing when she caught up to him, only shot a sidelong glance at her limping figure. His long strides slowed just slightly.

Again they threaded through the stick-straight jack pines, traversing the rust-colored needles that carpeted the forest floor. An occasional gust of wind swept in to renew Christine's suffering, and at one point she had to bite her lip to keep from crying again. Still the stranger said nothing.

Her eyesight had begun to blur from exhaustion, but she did not think she was imagining it when something feathery scuttled by in her periphery. She squinted and muttered, "Was that a chicken?"

"Yes. Watch your step there."

It was too late; she'd already tripped over the same distended tree root she was certain had felled her earlier, and she went stumbling forward. A long arm shot out and caught her across the stomach, guiding her back to an upright position with practiced ease.

She thanked him, couching her awkwardness with mumblings along the lines of "stupid forest," but she couldn't shake her discomfort. There was something unsettling about how clandestinely alert he was.

He led her past the fire pit and to the windowed back door of the cabin, whose walnut frame clacked and hung lopsided when he opened it. He flipped a switch, and the orangey glow of a chipped pendant light illuminated a tiny kitchen. Everything was wood: the exposed ceiling beams, the floor, the walls, the cabinets. There was only a gas range and oven, a sink, and a square of open countertop. Christine was ushered in, and she stood next to the tiny kitchen table as her host set his gun down by the door.

A white pit bull terrier trotted in to greet them, nails clicking against the hardwood. Its torso was mottled rust-brown, and it had floppy ears and endearingly drooping jowls.

"Caesar," the man said. "Terrible guard dog. Did not so much as stir when you trespassed." He reached down with long fingers to scratch beneath the dog's chin, which Caesar indulged before accosting her with tongue-wagging eagerness.

"Hi, puppy," she whispered. She let him sniff her hand and was rewarded with a sloppy kiss.

"You will want to change, I expect," said her companion. "I can dry your clothes, but you'll have to wear something of mine in the meantime. This way."

He led her to a darkened living room, where a stack of ashen logs smoldered in the stone fireplace, and left her to wait while he fetched spare clothes. She swayed where she stood, eying the cushioned sofa with increasing desperation. She was suddenly so very, very tired. Her eyelids began to flutter shut.

"Here." A bundle was pushed into her hands, and she snapped to attention. "This will have to make do." He slid the wet backpack from her shoulders and directed her to the bathroom, and she whispered her thanks—or maybe she just thought them? She could hardly distinguish what was happening anymore. The bathroom spun and tilted around her as she entered and shut the door. Perhaps she could just curl up in the tub?

The clothes.  _Take off the wet clothes, Christine._  She whimpered at her own inner voice and began to peel off wet fabric, slinging each item over the edge of the tub as she went. It was difficult to work the buttons and clasps with numb and shaking fingers, and she almost screamed as she pulled her sock down over her now-swollen ankle, but she did it, and then she wrapped herself in the towel he'd given her. It was threadbare and scratchy, and the color of oatmeal, but it was dry.

She rifled through the clean clothes. The navy sweater she pulled on first; it came almost to her knees, and the sleeves were long enough to cover her hands and ball into her fists. Already she felt marginally better. There were sweatpants, too, with an elastic waistband that clung snugly to the ample curve of her hips, but they looked so ridiculous with their bunched-up length that she opted to wear the sweater by itself, as a sleep-shirt, instead.

Undergarments, though: those were a problem. He had not provided any, nor would she have expected him to. She could go without a bra for now, but underwear?

She cracked the door open and brought her mouth to the gap. "Do you have a hair dryer?" she called out. Her voice cracked with cold and exhaustion.

"Bottom drawer," came the distant reply.

And that was how Christine Daae came to find herself blow-drying her unmentionables in a stranger's bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel-skirt and an oversized sweater. She trained the hair dryer on her undies until she could stand to wear them again, and then she aimed it at her hair for a few minutes so he wouldn't question what she'd been doing.

She ditched the towel-skirt and pulled on the white socks he'd given her, which stretched up the length of her calves. She was still cold, but the body-wracking shivers had subsided enough for her to focus on other things: the sensation that an ice pick had been lodged in her skull, for example. And again, how tired she was.  _So_  so tired.

She lowered the toilet lid and sat, groaning at the relief that flooded her muscles. She would rest here, just for a moment. Then she would go back out to the living room.

A pounding on the door startled her awake. "You've been in there a concerning length of time," called a male voice. When had she fallen asleep? Where was she? Something about a dog. And a bear.

"'m jus' gon' sleep here," she slurred quietly. Her eyes had already closed again.

"Oh no you don't." The door swung open and she was hauled to her feet, but her legs did not want to work. She whimpered.

An arm hooked around her waist. "Your cooperation will be necessary," said a curt voice in her ear. It was thick and dulcet and enveloped her like a satiny blanket despite its outward prickliness. "I would prefer not to carry you."

She forced her leaden limbs to shuffle forward, if only out of indignation at his frostiness. She was led back out to the living room, wincing all the while, the movement and sharp ankle pain nudging her into coherency. The fire had been stoked and rebuilt to fill the small room with crackling heat. Her guide sat her down and handed her a faded quilt, which she wrapped around her shoulders as he moved to sit in a chair opposite. Caesar blinked up at her from a bed beside the fireplace.

"Your name," the man demanded. His urgency caught her off guard and drew the whispered words from her throat.

"Christine Daae."

"Tell me, Miss Daae, are you always so ill-prepared, or is this particular brand of incompetence limited to canoeing?"

She was stunned into silence. Nothing in her history of rote conversation had prepared her for such cruel bluntness, and the thick fuzz around her brain inhibited further thought.

He pressed on without awaiting a response. "Do you live nearby? Is there someone who can come and get you?"

No. Perhaps there should have been: a heap of cousins and aunts and uncles who also vacationed there, as had been Grandpa Daae's great hope for his cozy riverside cottage. She had pictured it often: the busy slap of bare feet against the linoleum cottage floors, trays of hot dogs cooked over a bonfire, bathing suits and life jackets hung over the deck rails to dry in the sun. But those relatives and memories had never existed; Christine was the last of the Daae line.

She would also not impose on Meg and Raoul, though she knew they'd readily drive the four hours up from the city to fetch her. They were too good to her, so much that she almost didn't feel like the third wheel.

She shook her head, now so heavy it almost lolled to one side. "I'm staying at the hotel," she said.

He huffed. "That place is a hovel."

She watched him as he crossed one rangy leg over the other, emphasizing kneecaps that looked like they could cut glass. He was wearing a different black mask now, she realized: a thin sort of compression mask with cutouts for eyes, nose, and mouth. It hid his hair and looked like the sort of thing a burn victim might wear. There were cutouts for the ears, too, and she did a double-take as she realized he was no longer missing his right ear.

"A prosthetic," he said, and she flushed to know she'd been caught staring. "It's magnetic."

Her jaw dropped. "That's so cool," she said. "I mean, not cool that you need it, but…" She trailed off when his face remained impassive, instead drawing the quilt tighter as she edged closer to the fire. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

It was a pregnant pause that followed, the space between them crackling with an unnamed tension. The only sound in the room was the erratic drumming of his fingertips against the chair arm. He did not  _want_  her to know his name, she realized.

"Erik," he finally said, and he shot to his feet. "You need something hot to drink, and then I will drive you back to the hotel. Wait here."

Christine let out a long breath once he disappeared into the kitchen. He unnerved her, in a different way from before, though she supposed she ought to be grateful he hadn't murdered her.

Nearby, Caesar lowered his head to his paws and exhaled through his nostrils. His amber eyes tracked her only as long as they stayed open, and their gradual shuttering renewed the pull of sleep on her own body. She allowed herself to lie down on the sofa, using her arm as a prop in the absence of throw pillows.

Across from her was an old wooden bookcase, and she studied the titles through heavy lashes. There was a good chunk of science fiction, both new and old: John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, H.G. Wells. David Byrne's  _How Music Works_. Bob Dylan's  _Chronicles: Volume One_. And books in Arabic, a whole score of them, packing at least two shelves.

Questions plagued her even as she fell fast into unconsciousness, one blazing brighter than all the others:  _Who was he?_


	3. Dog

Christine woke to a rough wetness on her cheek.

She worked her eyes open to a slight squint, closing them just in time to avoid the lash of Caesar's tongue. It lapped at her brow, and she grumbled at him to stop.

He did not. He moved lower, to her nose.

She found she was wrapped in blankets like a burrito, her arms pinned to her sides, and it took some effort to wrestle a hand free and bat the dog away. He licked that hand instead. She pushed him with a bit more force, and he cast her a look of mild betrayal before jumping off the bed.

 _Bed._  It was decidedly not her own, and not the hotel's, and she did not recall ever climbing into it. The previous night's events hazily coalesced in her memory: the eagle, the capsize, the woods...and the sonorous man with a shotgun and a ravaged face.

She knew, without knowing, that this was  _his_  bed.

Christine rolled onto her side and worked the bedding loose. The sheets were a dingy gray, topped off with at least three equally faded blankets. The pillow smelled of soap and pine and a peculiar earthiness that could only be attributed to him. A clock on the nightstand read 9:03, and the light filtering through drab olive curtains suggested it was morning.

She snapped up to a sitting position, guilt and panic lancing her abdomen. She was certain it had been dusk when she'd intruded on her strange host.

She pivoted on the mattress, swinging bare legs out from under the covers. (Oh, God, had she truly walked around in only his sweater and knee-high socks?) Her shins were dotted with bruises, and through one sock she could make out the swell of her right ankle, now throbbing sharply from her movements.

Aside from the bed, the room held only a nightstand and a cedar chest of drawers. A faded oriental rug cushioned the path from bedside to door, the latter cracked open no doubt thanks to Caesar. She smoothed her tangled mess of hair, eased herself onto her good ankle, and limped over as quietly as possible to peer through the gap.

Across the living room, Erik sat cross-legged in the same armchair as the previous night. It was upholstered in 1970s avocado green and was likely a relic of that same decade, if its wear and discoloration were any indication.

He still wore the strange surgical mask, the one made of black nylon or lycra that had cutouts for his facial features. It framed every detail of his misshapen nose, but otherwise, it covered much of the craggy skin she'd seen the night before. The only other telltale sign was the right corner of his mouth, slightly puckered and bloated.

He wore black utility pants again, this time with a slate-gray thermal shirt. A laptop lay closed in his lap. He had his head cocked back and his eyes closed, and the distinctive keening of Radiohead's Thom Yorke spilled quietly from a turntable in the corner of the room. His bony wrists jutted out where his hands rested on his midsection, his thin fingers laced in repose.

Fearing she'd wake him, Christine opened the door as quietly as possible and crept toward the bathroom.

"Good morning, Miss Daae."

She flinched at his voice. "I'm sorry," she said, squinting through sleep-swollen eyelids. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Slowly, his eyes opened and fixed on her. "On the contrary. I was taking too long a respite from my work, and your timing is appreciated."

"How long have I been out?"

"About fifteen hours."

She gaped. "What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

She frowned as she rubbed at her temples. "Only changing out of wet clothes, and lying down on the sofa." Also: blow-drying her underwear, and a prosthetic ear. These things she did not mention.

"You were half-delirious. Slurring, disoriented, falling asleep at odd moments. Undoubtedly the early stages of hypothermia."

She shook her head in disbelief. "I had no idea."

"In that state, people rarely do. It took twenty minutes to convince you to take some tea and aspirin. The bed, you were more amenable to." He stood, setting his laptop aside, and plucked a bundle of clothing from the sofa. "I have dried your belongings," he said, pushing them into her waiting hands, and he cast a glance at her bare legs. "I regret that my stand-ins were found wanting."

Christine's face flamed with the heat of a thousand suns, fanned further when she caught sight of the bra strap dangling from her things. She whispered her thanks and quickly retreated to the bathroom to change.

She cringed at the sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair not only smelled like river, but also resembled the slimy vegetation contained therein. She ran her fingers through it until her arms tired, and then she tugged on her jeans and the pale-pink shirt she'd worn the day before. There had been a new toothbrush on the stack of clothing as well, and she scoured her mouth until every hint of morning breath was chased away.

She found Erik at the kitchen table, mouth drawn in concentration, computer keys clacking beneath rangy fingers. The music had since stopped. The moment she entered his periphery, he snapped the laptop shut and stood. "I imagine you must be hungry."

"Yeah, a bit." In truth, her stomach was so empty it hurt.

He gestured to the table. "Sit. Coffee?"

"Please." She watched him fill a rust-colored mug at the counter. Despite his cruel words the night before, he was proving a remarkably considerate host.

It did not excuse his rudeness, of course. She eyed him warily but still thanked him when he set the mug before her. "How do you take your eggs?" he asked, and she waved him off with a non-committal wish that he exert the least effort possible. She couldn't be certain, but she thought she caught a glimpse of an eye roll as he opened the fridge.

It was a struggle not to pelt him with questions as she waited. Instead, she sipped at her coffee and drummed her fingertips against the table, until his back tensed at the sound and she went stock-still. Best not to irritate him any more than she already had.

"I'm so sorry to intrude on you like this," she said. "I'm not—I don't—" She blew air through her nostrils in frustration. "This isn't like me."

Erik glanced over his shoulder, the mask shifting as he raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."

She gaped at him as he turned back to the stove. She recalled with renewed indignance just how icy he'd been the night before, and she was suddenly ready to leave as soon as possible. She'd figure out what to do with the canoe later.

"I have no signal on my phone," she said, "but if you let me borrow yours, I can call an Uber or something." It was what she'd planned to do after canoeing, since her car was still at the cottage. "I'd hate to inconvenience you any more than I already have." She stressed the word  _inconvenience_  just enough to hint at sarcasm, inwardly berating herself for her passive-aggressiveness.

"You are sorely mistaken if you think Uber has reached these parts." There was an inherent smugness to his voice. "Besides, you have a canoe, and I have a truck." He set a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast before her, not bothering to acknowledge her mumbled thanks. "I will bring in your canoe while you eat. You are clearly incapacitated by that ankle."

There was no sense in protesting at this point. She chewed absently on her toast, watching Erik strap on his heavy boots and whistle for Caesar, who came trotting in at once, the pair of them slipping out into the gray morning.

Christine ate ravenously, and she studied the surroundings she'd missed in her stupor the night before: an old upright piano in the living room, for example, flanked by an acoustic guitar on one side and an electric guitar and amp on the other. She'd been missing her piano at home, and now this one beckoned to her, sending sparks to her fingers that made them flex of their own volition. She swallowed the urge to play along with her breakfast: the last thing she ought to do right now was touch Erik's things without his permission.

She scraped her plate clean and took it over to the sink. There was no dishwasher, and the cast-iron pan in which he'd cooked the eggs needed scrubbing. Washing dishes was the least she could do, she supposed, to pay him back for his generosity. She balanced her weight on her good ankle and set to work, singing quietly to herself all the while.

"Your technique is inconsistent."

Christine started at the sound of Erik's voice behind her, sending the scrub brush clattering into the sink. He stood at the juncture of living room and kitchen, his forearm resting against the wall above his head. His mouth was set in the straight line she was growing used to, but something in his eyes and his erect posture denoted interest.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked, wiping her hands on a towel.

"Your technique. It's good. Solid. But it's uneven."

She set down the towel and put her hands to her hips. "I wasn't exactly singing to an audience."

His long fingers were splayed against the wood paneling like spider legs, each flexing and lifting one by one as if playing a scale, almost exactly as her fingers had done moments before. "It makes no difference," he said. "You ought to employ proper technique as often as possible."

She held back a huff of irritation. "Thank you, but I'm a music teacher and quite capable of determining how and when I should sing."

He cocked his head. "Are you, now? And whom do you teach?"

"Elementary school students."

He let out a short bark of laughter. "Ah, yes, your vocal instruction must have been exemplary! Second only to finger-painting. First-graders are paragons of musical proficiency, after all."

She couldn't stop her hands from balling into fists at her sides. "Says the man with less courtesy than any first-grader I've met."

Erik pulled his arm from the wall and closed in on her, imposing by sheer height difference alone. "And tell me, which courtesy have I not extended to you? The one where I housed and clothed and fed you, and hauled your canoe through the woods? Or the one where I saved your life despite your obvious distaste?"

Her cheeks grew hot. "It was not distaste. It was..." Flustered, she turned back to the dishes to avoid the sear of his gaze. "I was caught off guard, is all. We've been over this." She scrubbed at the cast-iron pan with renewed force, muttering, "Though at this point, if I had to do it over again, I might very well choose hypothermia."

For a long moment, the only sound in the cabin was the erratic scratching of the scrub brush. "Well then," he finally said. "No sense in delaying your departure. Grab your things."

She shut off the faucet. Was he serious? He was already retreating when she turned to question him, but the subsequent jingle of keys and slam of the front door were indication enough. Guilt constricted her chest for the second time that day.

She put on her fleece jacket and found her backpack in the living room. It was bone dry, but its contents were slightly damp, suggesting he'd emptied it and run it through the dryer as well. She zipped it and reached out to pat Caesar, who was hovering next to her in idle curiosity. "It was nice to meet you, buddy," she murmured. When she turned to leave, Erik was watching her through the screen door.

Their eyes met, and his seemed...hollow, somehow. His jaw twitched, and he moved away from the porch.

The clouds outside were thick and doughy, the wind and cold even harsher than the day before. She found Erik leaning against the cab of a red pickup. The canoe was already secured with bungee cords in the truck bed, and he was zipping up a sleek black shell jacket. At the sight of Christine, he wordlessly opened the passenger-side door, and she climbed in.

Her stomach was churning now, disquieted by the fact that someone was unhappy with her. She shouldn't care so much, she knew: he'd been cruel with his words, and she was never going to see him again. But some small, annoying part of her still sought his approval, and for the life of her she could not understand why.

If it was her last time in his company, however, she might as well attempt to sate her curiosity. "Can I ask what you do for a living?" she said, knowing it was a shot in the dark.

"No, you may not."

Erik turned the key in the ignition, and the car gave a long, asthmatic sputter before petering out.

A small growl sounded in his throat, and he turned the key again. Still the engine refused to cooperate. Both he and Christine stared at the dash, as though they might bring the engine to life through sheer force of will. Erik turned the key in the ignition a third time, with no success.

A single raindrop pelted the windshield and rolled down the glass. Then came another—and another—until rain was dancing on the roof of the cab in a steady patter.

"Of course." Erik let out a caustic laugh. He popped the hood and went out to investigate, Christine following close behind with a fleeting hope that she might be of some assistance. The rain was icy, sinking straight into her bones, and she immediately regretted her decision.

"Likely the battery," he announced over the escalating downpour. "The terminals are corroded, so we'll start there." He lowered the hood, calling back to her as he set off in long-legged strides for the house. "Rather,  _I_  will start there. You have no business being outside in these conditions."

Already shivering, she limped after him.

Inside, she watched, feeling useless, as he poured measured tablespoons of baking soda into a cup of hot water. "Is that for cleaning the terminals?" she asked. "How do you put it on?"

"Ideally with a toothbrush," he said, "but it so happens that someone used my spare this morning." He stirred the contents of the cup into a grainy paste. "I believe I have a wire brush in the shed that will work."

"I'll go get it," she offered.

"No!" His reply was sharp, his eyes near wild for a hair of a second before his face slackened. "No, I can take care of it. The shed is locked, and you ought to stay inside." He set the cup on the counter and slipped out the back door before she could get in a word. She blinked dazedly at the space he'd just occupied. What had just happened?

She'd resumed scraping the egg pan when he returned with a tiny wire brush. Rain slicked down his jacket in rivulets, and his mask clung wetly to his skin. He'd slipped his fingertips under its edge when he glanced at Christine, hesitating, and turned his back to her.

She busied herself at the sink again, but she watched from the corner of her eye as he peeled off the thin black mask. She could see only the damp strands of dark hair at the back of his head before he eclipsed it with the warmer ski mask. She should say something, should tell him he didn't need to cover his face because she was over her initial shock—but that would be a lie. She kept quiet.

She averted her gaze when he turned to grab the baking-soda paste, and once he'd gone out the front door to the truck, she rinsed and dried the heavy pan. Afterward, she drifted into the living room, searching for some other way to be useful. It might make sense to build a fire—but then, with the way things had gone so far, she'd end up burning the place down.

She peered out the front window instead. Erik was bent over the battery, scrubbing away, the hood of the truck shielding only a small segment of his body from the rain.

He seemed competent as far as his homesteading went, and comfortable in his surroundings, but there was something incongruous about his presence here, too—something she couldn't quite put her finger on. He was not like any local she'd ever met. She felt, in her gut, that the circumstances of his face must have driven him here more than anything else. She could hardly imagine that kind of life, all but cut off from society. It made her anxious.

She backed away from the window before he saw her. It was then that she spotted the black, cane-handled umbrella hanging from a coat rack by the door, and she knew what she had to do.

He did a double-take when she appeared at his side, umbrella held high to accommodate his frame. When she stood close enough, their arms almost touching, it was just large enough to canvas the two of them.

He did not stop working even as he spoke, his voice once again muffled by the balaclava. "That is wholly unnecessary."

"Well. We wouldn't want you to get hypothermia, now, would we?"

He did look at her then, and she offered a meek smile. She could see nothing of his face but a pair of flinty eyes, but she was certain she saw a flicker of something there. Suddenly, the irises seemed lighter somehow. Softer.

"After this," he said, quieter now, "we ought to take a look at that ankle."

She nodded, and he turned his attention back to the vehicle.

All around them, rain pounded the soft earth and glistened on the pine needles. A light, curling fog had formed among the tree trunks and it crept toward the cabin, threatening to devour it whole. But as Christine stood silent and still, holding up their little column of dry quiet, she could not help but feel strangely content.


	4. Bird

Christine could not help but study Erik's hands as he scrubbed at the battery terminals of his truck. There was something otherworldly about them, the way the pale skin was thin yet rough-hewn, stretched taut across sunken palms like netting, fine lines rippling while he worked.

The knobby joints of his fingers jutted out at sharp, alien angles. Along the back of each digit a fibrous tendon was strung so tight it strained against skin, yet each moved with an easy fluidity that transfixed her. They were pianist's hands, the kind she'd always envied and would never have, and they would have been had he never even touched an instrument.

The patter of rain on the umbrella softened, and she looked up to find the rain thickening to a translucent slurry. Another few seconds, and the droplets had solidified into heavy, wet snowflakes that dissolved like sugar on the tongue as they met with the ground.

"Well," she said, "this is slightly more amenable."

Erik glanced up for no more than half a second, a curt grunt of agreement sounding in his throat. He wiped the last of the corrosion residue from the terminals with a rag, checking their tightness as he went. "Don't get your hopes up," he said, and he ducked out from beneath the umbrella to turn the key in the ignition once more.

Once more, it sputtered and died.

"What now?" she asked once he'd stepped out of the cab.

He shut the door with probably more force than was necessary. "I retrieve the battery charger from the shed, and we pray that it does the trick." He stalked off toward the side of the cabin; she closed the umbrella and followed. The sharp ache in her ankle slowed her down yet again.

As they neared the back of the house, he made an abrupt stop and rounded on her. "I did not specify for you to follow," he said. "Go back inside and get off that ankle, for God's sake."

Dumbstruck, Christine stood and watched as he walked to a shed situated some distance behind the cabin. It was bigger than what she was used to, more the shape and size of a small barn, with the wood painted a dark rust-red. It was sealed with a padlock. Erik looked over his shoulder as he reached the door, and somehow she could feel the angry intensity of his gaze even from a distance. She quickly found the back door of the cabin and slipped in through the kitchen.

The shed, meanwhile, vaulted to a top priority among her burning internal questions.

She dried her glasses on her shirt and stepped out of her now painfully constricting boots. She chose to ignore Erik's instruction to rest her ankle, having realized she'd left the bedding a tangled mess. Should she wash the sheets? Or was that too imposing? In the end, she made the bed to the best of her ability, smoothing every last wrinkle out of the covers until Erik's rangy silhouette darkened the bedroom doorway.

He had changed back into the black nylon mask, and he appraised her now through the large eyeholes. "Do you truly value courtesy so much," he asked, "that you would sacrifice your health for it?"

She tugged at the edge of the top coverlet to straighten it. "It's not that bad."

"Your limp would suggest otherwise. Please sit down, Miss Daae, and at least allow me to get you an ice pack."

"Fine," she huffed.

While he went to the freezer, she perched sideways on the sofa and pulled her foot up onto the cushion. It was even more painful to peel the sock off now, the skin beneath it having deepened into concerning shades of ink-blue and wine-purple.

Erik opened the curtains to let in the light, then sat beside her and set a towel-wrapped ice pack on the neighboring coffee table. "May I?" he asked, his fingers hovering at her pant leg. She nodded, and he gingerly rolled back the cuff of her jeans to expose the ankle. Christine winced, not out of pain but out of mortification: she had not intended for anyone to see her bare feet this deep into autumn, least of all this sultry-voiced woodsman.

But then, she supposed, he had not intended for anyone to see his face. They were more than even.

"Exactly how did this happen?" he asked, and she was forced to recount, with great shame, her misadventures the day before.

"I'm not a novice, I swear," she insisted afterward. "I probably should've dressed differently, but I get so warm when I'm paddling, and I don't own a drysuit, and I haven't tipped over since—oh!" He'd slid his fingers under her heel, and she couldn't help but gasp at their iciness, and at the way their touch sent a shock up her spine. No doubt the chill was from the ice pack, and the outdoors, but that subsequent surge of warmth—she couldn't explain that.

Erik had begun to lift her foot, and he paused, cocking his head. "Forgive me. Is that too painful?"

His eyes, contrary to his words, were unforgiving. With every glance, it was as though they stared directly into her soul, stripping away layers of pretense to chip at the marrow of her thoughts. Would he know if she lied? Did he ever  _blink_?

"No, it's fine," she said hoarsely.

He continued his examination, questioning her about the pain, rotating the ankle as much as it would allow. The shock of the cold wore off, but her skin still tingled everywhere. The hands she'd just studied in great detail were touching her person, and in light of his general standoffishness, this knowledge was strangely exhilarating.

"It's not as swollen as I would expect from a sprain," he concluded, "and you would have more difficulty walking were it a fracture. Still, you should keep off of it as much as possible." He slid a throw pillow under her foot for support before applying the ice pack. "We ought to have done this last night, but one has to make concessions for hypothermia, I suppose. One moment, please." He ducked into the bathroom and then the kitchen, returning with pain pills and a glass of water, both of which she readily accepted. The blanket he'd loaned her the night before was draped over the sofa back, and she pulled it down with her free hand to spread over her lap.

Erik disappeared again, this time through the back door, and when he returned it was with an armful of split logs and kindling that he proceeded to arrange in the fireplace. He knelt with his back to her, allowing her to watch him as she nursed her water.

"It will take about twelve hours to charge the car battery," he said. "Perhaps we should see about arranging a ride. Tomorrow is a school day, no?"

"No. I mean, yes, it is, but I don't have to be there. I'm..." Christine hesitated. "I'm on leave, actually."

"I see." He did not press her for more, only shifted the kindling and lit it.

Still, she couldn't help herself from elaborating. "I took the semester off after my dad passed away this summer. It's why I'm here, actually—to sell the family cottage. It's on the river."

At this, he looked up. "You don't want to keep it?"

She shrugged. "I mean, it's not that I don't  _want_  to, but...it's just me. What would I do up here, in the wilderness, all by myself?"

His gaze turned pointed. "What indeed?" he asked dryly, and her cheeks warmed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't meant to be a slight."

"Ah, well, I understand this lifestyle is not attractive to most." One corner of his mouth quirked back in a ghost of a smile. "But therein lies the appeal for some of us, hmm?" The flames crackled to life, and he moved to the armchair opposite her.

She took in the fire, and the picturesque scenery, and the dog dozing by the hearth. "It  _is_  cozy," she said softly, "and quiet. I bet there are times when you can hear the snow falling on the pines."

He stared at her, lips pressed together, for several seconds before his focus wandered downward to the arm of his chair, where he picked at a loose thread. "I am by no means an entertaining host," he said, "but the only cab driver in town that I know of is an utter lout, and I would not trust Joe Buquet as far as I could throw him. Not to mention you have only just settled in." His gaze found hers again and held it, imploring. "All that is to say, if you were inclined to stay the afternoon, I suppose Caesar would not mind your company."

She was pleasantly stunned. An invitation, paired with an attempt at humor, from the man who couldn't manage crack a smile? She laughed quietly. "I feel like I've already imposed on you for so long," she said, "but if it would make Caesar happy…"

What was she saying? Hadn't she jumped at the chance to leave only half an hour before? But it was cold outside, and wet, and she was comfy and decrepit and the fire smelled  _so good_  all of a sudden.

"Is that a yes?" he asked, and she nodded. "Very well then. I have some housework to attend to, and I need to feed the chickens, but perhaps after that we can see about lunch."

She let out an excited gasp. "Chickens! I forgot there were chickens. Can I meet them?"

"Later," he said, "when you are not meant to be resting that ankle." He opened the drawer of a nearby side table and pulled out a stack of books and magazines that he tossed onto the sofa beside her. "I'm afraid I don't have a TV, but perhaps you'll find something of interest in there."

She kept herself busy enough once he left. She completed, with some frustration, several pages of advanced sudoku and crossword puzzles. She perused a years-old issue of  _Record Collector_  magazine and read an obscure interview with Smokey Robinson. She thumbed through pages and pages of sparrows and starlings in an ancient-looking field guide. By the time she took to notepad and pencil to revive her long-dormant drawing skills, Erik still had yet to return from his work outdoors.

She tried to sketch Caesar first, but she was out of practice, and he came out looking like a sad, malnourished manatee. She quickly devolved into the cartoony style that the kids at work so often loved, penning crude scenes that starred her as an endearingly awkward stick person: falling out of a canoe, being chased by an axe murderer, getting eaten by a bear.

Eventually she grew tired of doodling, and her attention wandered over to Erik's bookshelf. She set notepad and ice pack aside, slid onto the floor, and scooted over to look at the Arabic selection, pulling out spines to peer at each one. One cover in particular caught her eye: a painted elephant in a golden headpiece, submerged in a geometrically patterned lake, opposite a red rabbit sitting on the bank. She pulled it out.

It was a paperback copy, and well-worn. Something slid out when she thumbed through the pages. With a nervous glance toward the back door, she picked it up.

It was a photograph of two men in Army fatigues. They stood among the decaying, sand-colored ruins of some kind of building, a windowed gap behind them overlooking an expanse of water and palm trees far below. The first man was handsome, smiling easily for the camera, his skin a deep bronze flecked with sand. He had jet-black hair and thick-set eyebrows that framed a pair of startlingly green eyes.

The second was taller and thinner, and oddly pale given the desert setting. His mouth was a taut semblance of a smile, the kind worn by someone who didn't want to be photographed. It took her a second, but she began to recognize the sallow sharpness of his features, his dark eyes, and especially his hands: it was Erik. Erik with an unmarred face.

_Oh._

Suddenly, it was much easier to guess at the nature of his deformity.

The back door creaked open; Christine shoved the photo into the book and returned it to its shelf. When Erik found her, she was running her fingers along the spines in admiration. "You have so many books in Arabic," she observed. "They're lovely."

His jaw worked back and forth in apparent contemplation. "I do translation work," he finally said. "English to Arabic, and vice versa. French or Spanish on occasion." It was a generous concession from someone who had refused to disclose his occupation only hours before. He seemed to be thawing before her very eyes.

"What sorts of things do you translate?"

"I would prefer not to discuss my work further."

Alright, so it was a slow thaw. She wouldn't question him about the picture, then. Not yet. "You, ah, finished all your chores, then?" she asked. She attempted to push herself off the floor on one foot, nearly collapsing in the process.

"Yes." Erik extended a hand to help her up. His fingers wrapped easily around her own, and though they were cold again, she did not mind so much. "Forgive me if this is imprudent," he said, "but I would very much like to hear your voice at its full capacity."

Her eyes widened. "You mean sing."

"Yes."

"Now?"

"I don't see why not."

She shifted nervously on the ball of her non-injured foot. "I'm woefully out of practice," she cautioned.

"I can accompany you, if that will ease the burden of the spotlight." He gestured to the space beside the acoustic guitar, where two wooden milk crates overflowed with sheet music. "Take your pick. Or I may be able to improvise, depending on the selection."

She hobbled over and rifled through the music. "So many choices!" she lamented. "I'm trying to remember which audition pieces I used in college."

"I'm a musician, not a casting director," he said. "Show me how Christine Daae sings."

She paused, her gaze flicking from Erik's face to each of the instruments in the room. "Well," she said, "in that case…" She lifted the acoustic guitar from its stand.

His eyes tracked her as she moved to sit cross-legged by the fire, on the faded blue rug that covered the bare floorboards. She positioned the instrument in her lap and smiled up at him. "Gather 'round, then, class."

He hovered in place for so long, with such wary tension in his frame, that by the time he joined her on the rug, she'd already accepted his noncompliance and begun plunking out a few warm-up chords. She pretended not to notice how awkwardly he tucked in his long legs, or how stiffly he sat.

Christine's heart rate quickened: she was used to singing for others, but this was somehow...intimate. She averted her eyes, settling on a loose thread in the rug as her focal point. Her fingers trembled just slightly as they plucked the gentle opening cadence of "The Sound of Silence," and when she began the lyrics, her voice was meek.

_Hello darkness, my old friend  
_ _I've come to talk with you again_

The familiar melody cocooned her in the nostalgic warmth of memories long forgotten; her breaths deepened; her muscles loosened. As her voice began to steady, she dared to glance up at Erik. His mouth was drawn and his eyes were fixed on her, attentive but seeking, as though awaiting an answer he had yet to receive.

She'd always known she did not and could never have an "ideal" singing voice, that sweeping brightness and fullness of the lyric sopranos. But hers was what one college vocal instructor had termed "sweetly rasping," and she'd grown to accept the way its subtle texture had set her apart from her peers, once she'd learned how to wield it.

Somehow, without saying a word, Erik was now encouraging her to wield it.

His gaze seared into her, drawing the music from her lungs with such force she could feel the melody unspooling from her diaphragm. The notes remained soft, in keeping with the style of the song, but they were firm and pure and unwavering. She closed her eyes until there was nothing but sound.

Meanwhile, the rest of her body seemed to have fused with the guitar, until she and it were one entity, the song flowing from her muscles into the strings, reverberating in the soft wooden hollow of the instrument and then back up into her bones. It underscored the melody that spilled from her lips, rose up to circle and twist around it until the two parts were entwined like a strand of DNA, echoing the music that was surely written into her genes.

Oh, how she'd missed this: the comforting simplicity of guitar and song, shared with a friend or twenty in a cozy space. Every nerve ending tingled as she brought the song to its completion. She opened her eyes, and there were Erik's, blazing with a breathtaking intensity that burnished his brown irises gold. It overwhelmed her, and she looked down at the rug instead.

"I know, I'm rusty," she said. "And you were right earlier; I do think my technique is slipping. Not that my voice was ever that amazing to begin with—"

He held up a broad palm to stop her. "Do not," he said quietly, "debase your talent."

Christine's jaw snapped shut. "Okay," she whispered.

"I...thank you. For that."

"You're welcome?" Inwardly she cringed at her response, and the conversation dissolved into awkward silence. She slid the guitar off her lap. "I guess I should put this back."

"Allow me." He got to his feet, relieving her of the guitar with one hand and again helping her up with the other. She settled back onto the sofa while he returned the instrument to its stand. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not yet."

Again he took up the avocado-green chair, its fabric muffling the frenetic tapping of his fingers as the heavy silence continued to pervade their space. "Forgive me," he said. "I was perhaps too optimistic about this arrangement. In truth, I have few ways in which to entertain guests, particularly those who are infirm."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not infirm."

"Debatable, but my point still stands."

"Well, what would you do in your spare time if I wasn't here?"

"Guitar, piano. Reading. Vinyl."

"All of that sounds lovely. Honest."

He studied her for a moment in that probing way of his, as if to catch her in a lie, but he seemed satisfied with whatever he saw there. He hoisted himself up and began flipping through the records that were shelved in the turntable stand. He held up three for her consideration; she pointed to her choice, smiling, and he set up the record to play.

The distinctive, lilting violin of Andrew Bird sounded from the turntable as he returned to his seat. Caesar rose from his bed by the hearth and rooted himself at his master's side, staring up at him with an expectant head tilt. Erik sighed. "Oh, alright." He patted his thigh, and the pit bull sprung onto his lap, wriggling its body against his gently sloping torso until it lay back with pale-pink stomach exposed.

Still smiling, Christine propped up her ankle. She bundled herself in the blanket, and he scratched affectionately at the dog's belly, and together they listened.


	5. Deer

For the second time that day, Christine woke up disoriented.

She did not recall even feeling sleepy, only curling up with a blanket by the fire, listening to Erik's records. It was an effective recipe for drowsiness, in hindsight. She was still bundled on the sofa, but the music had stopped and the fire burned low. There was no sign of Erik save for an echoing  _thwack_  outside that may or may not have been attributed to him. Caesar, bless his heart, had stayed behind on the dog bed. The sounds of her shifting roused him, and he lifted his boxy head to squint at her before settling back to sleep.

After untangling her hair in the bathroom, she followed the thwacking sounds to the back of the cabin. Through the kitchen window, she could see Erik splitting wood on the tree stump she'd spotted the day before. The sleeves of his gray shirt were rolled up to the elbows, his sinewy forearms flexing as he gripped the axe. He swung with a forward-and-down arc that made his shoulder blades jut out with each strike. Two pieces of split log went skittering off the chopping block, and he retrieved them with gloved hands to stack on the woodpile.

She pulled on her boots and jacket and stepped outside. There was no trace of the light snow that had fallen earlier, and the wind had calmed, leaving only a dull cold.

Erik glanced up briefly before he set another log on the stump. "I trust you are feeling better?" he asked. A swift strike, and the axe embedded itself midway through the wood. He lifted and struck again; the log split, and the halves fell away.

Christine gave a self-deprecating laugh. "My body hates me, apparently."

"It endured quite a lot yesterday." More wood went onto the pile. "I ate already, but there's an extra sandwich in the fridge, should you want it."

She thanked him and retrieved the sandwich, returning with it wrapped in a napkin. She sat in one of the pair of lawn chairs at the nearby fire pit, chewing thoughtfully as she watched him work. Off to one side of the yard, a few hens scuttled around a fenced-in chicken run attached to a wooden coop, and she made a mental note to visit them next.

"You said you don't entertain guests," she remarked, "but there are two chairs here."

"An acquaintance used to visit on occasion. A man I knew from"—he paused—"from work." He rooted the axe blade in the ground and wiped the exposed skin below his eyes, where a thin sheen of perspiration had developed. "Alas, he is no longer with us."

Her jaw went slack, and she hurried to swallow the bite she'd just taken. "I'm so, so sorry for your loss."

The corner of Erik's mouth twitched. "He relocated to New Jersey," he replied, and he bent to collect the split kindling from the ground. "In that sense, perhaps Nadir is the one to whom you should extend your condolences." There was a glimmer in his eyes, one that made her suspect she'd been set up: more of his particular brand of barbed humor, and—dry as it was—another welcome change from that morning's hostility.

He set down the axe and took a few uncertain steps in her direction, brush crackling under his heavy black boots. He could not quite meet her gaze, it seemed. "I owe you an apology for my earlier abrasiveness," he said, as though reading her thoughts once again. "It's a poor excuse, but disruptions to my privacy are...jarring." Caesar scratched at the back door, and Erik let him out. "You might say I'm wired to safeguard it."

"What do you mean?"

He threw her a sharp glance, working his jaw as if to debate how to respond, and she offered a wan smile. "Of course," she said. "That's private, too. Got it."

He picked up the axe and another log, and she ate more of the sandwich while making her way over to the chickens. There were three, all rust-colored, and one approached with mild interest as she peered through the wire. "What are their names?" she asked.

Erik stopped splitting wood long enough to point to each hen. "Marguerite, Marthe, Siebel."

She smiled. " _Faust_."

"Indeed."

"Isn't Siebel a man?"

"Played by a woman, in a pants role." He lifted the axe again. "I'm afraid there are only so many female characters to work with."

"True," she conceded. "Any future hens will have to be named 'Chorus Member.'"

His mouth quirked back into a small smile, and a heady warmth unfurled in her chest as he turned back to the chopping block.

She squatted beside the enclosure. "Hi, chickens," she cooed. She poked a finger through the wire at Siebel, the one who had deemed her worthy enough to investigate, and was rewarded with a series of sharp pecks. "Hey, hey, none of that," she chided softly. She retracted her hand and picked off a bit of her crust, offering that instead. "I  _will_  win you over." The bread was more well received, enough that she was soon tearing off bits for all three eager chickens.

Off to her side, Caesar sat obediently and watched the goings-on with large, imploring eyes and the odd head tilt. Finally, she tore off a piece of turkey and held it out for him. He inhaled it and licked his chops, casting her another look of desperation, and she fed him a second piece.

Christine looked up to find Erik watching her, the axe dangling at his side. "Is your lunch really so abhorrent, Miss Daae, that you must literally throw it to the dogs?" His jaw was relaxed, his eyes glinting: more humor. Perhaps he was not so inscrutable after all.

"No, it's good," she replied brightly, and she sprung to her feet. "But when it comes to winning animals over, I'm not above bribery."

He drew closer, pinning her with shrewd brown eyes. His voice dipped lower, curling around her to cinch her lungs with unseen satin fingers. "And is that your approach with people, too?" he deadpanned. Another few steps and he was practically looming over her, all angled lines and shadow, and she'd already begun to back up before he brushed past her entirely. Bewildered, she turned to find him stowing the axe in the wooden storage rack behind her.

Christine willed herself to breathe. "No," she said, the intimidation still too fresh to lapse back into humor. "I don't know how to get people to like me. I just have to be honest and kind and hope that's enough."

"And why should their opinion be of any consequence?"

"Well...no one really wants to be alone all the time, right?"

His lips pressed into a thin line. "Do not," he said, "presume to speak for everybody." He stalked back into the house, and she could only follow warily, convinced she'd managed to offend him again. Once they'd shed their boots, however, the shadow over his face had passed.

She left him alone for much of the day. He'd cited some work tasks that needed seeing to, and she'd encouraged it. A full day in anyone's company, let alone a stranger's, was draining. It finally occurred to her to ask for wifi access, and she was able to catch up on her own correspondence: namely, a handful of increasingly concerned texts from Meg, asking how things were going.

_Fun story: fell in river_ , she wrote back.  _Back on track tomorrow and should be home by end of week. Tell Raoul I said hi._

Home. It certainly didn't feel like home, her new apartment. She'd spent less than a week in it before deciding to head north for a while.

Dinner that evening was a simple affair, but better than anything she'd eaten all week: fresh river trout, baked with butter and lemon. Roasted root vegetables, which she was allowed to prepare only once she'd begged to help. Bread, kneaded and baked by Erik himself, warm from the oven. It was a challenge to stifle happy eating sounds as she sat across the table from him, surrounded by a warm fire and flickering candles and soft music from the turntable. The scene might have been romantic in any other circumstance, but Erik had gone about setting it up with such methodic precision that it was clear this was routine.

The meal was punctuated only by small talk. Erik, she had learned, was a man of few words, and with so much of his life off limits to questioning, she could only prompt him so much. Neither did she want to blab about herself the whole time, so she contented herself with enjoying the music, savoring the food.

"This was wonderful," she said once she'd set down her silverware.

"Surely it would have been more enjoyable had you let me prepare the entire meal as planned," he said pointedly.

"Nonsense. I'm used to cooking for two."

Erik's fork paused midway between plate and mouth. "Oh?"

"For me and my roommate," she said, and his shoulders seemed to relax. "Well, former roommate; her fiancé moved in last week."

"Ah. And you moved out."

She nodded. Her throat began to tighten, and she searched the room for something, anything, that would allow her to change the subject. It was then that she noticed the high shelf on the wall behind Erik, lined with wooden animals small enough to fit in her hand: owl, fox, bear, deer. "What are those?" she asked, pointing.

He followed her line of sight. "Nothing," came his curt reply. "Just a hobby. Inconsequential." He stood and stacked the dishes, carrying them to the sink without another word.

"Wait, you  _made_  them?" Christine circled the table and pulled one down for further examination. It was a standing doe, russet-brown, looking over its shoulder as if waiting for a fawn to catch up. The carving wasn't terribly detailed, but every stroke was deliberate and soft, and she'd half expected the wood to feel like fur at her fingertips. With gentle reverence, she turned the figurine over in each hand. "It's beautiful," she said. "I don't think I've ever seen a carving so...so…"

Erik appeared at her side, peering down into her palm. "So…?"

"Tender," she finally said, and she looked up at him.

"Ah." His gaze dropped down to the floor, and he rubbed at the back of his head. "Well, one can learn anything on the internet these days." He mumbled something about checking the car battery and was out the door before she could reply.

He was gone longer than expected, and she was nearly finished cleaning up from dinner when the truck engine roared to life outside and sent her stomach fluttering. It was time to leave, then. Time to return to an empty cottage.

He waited in silence while she collected her things and bid the dog a final farewell. In the truck, she relayed directions to her cottage, where her car was still parked.

"Why stay at the hotel when you have free lodging?" he asked, shifting into reverse.

"The cottage furniture's been sold."

"But why not save that for last?"

"It's easier to paint and clean when it's not there." At least, that was what she'd told herself, once upon a time. She was starting to doubt it now, when the very thought of staying the night at the cabin seized her with an unexplained anxiety.

Traffic on the drive was so scarce that Erik kept his high beams on the whole way, dimming them only twice out of courtesy for an oncoming vehicle. By comparison, driving with the low beams was like navigating a tunnel with a headlamp: the treeline all but disappeared, and she could only see what was right in front of them. The brighter setting added only a thin layer of relief. Unspoiled nature was terrifying at night.

Christine had made many such drives and knew how it felt to grip the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles went white, and to stare unblinkingly at the curving roads until her eyes dried up, so she stayed silent for the duration. It was Erik who finally broke the silence, just a half mile from her cottage.

"Forgive me," he said, "but as it seems unlikely we'll meet again, I can't help but feel you are owed the truth about your singing voice."

Her face clouded, and she looked down at the hands twined in her lap. "I don't doubt that you mean well, but I'm really not interested in any sort of critique right n—"

"It's extraordinary." His interruption was breathless, brusque.

"But my technique—"

"Forget the technique. It's fine. I am a pretentious ass, and you'd do well do ignore half of what I say. But not this."

"I…" She was too stunned to formulate a response. "Thank you," was all she could manage. She looked up just in time to see the reflective eyes of the stag that bolted out in front of them.

For one long, dreadful moment, she was forced to watch the oncoming collision with no ability to stop it. Her heart leapt out of her throat and it was possible she screamed, or shouted, but her body and her thoughts were no longer her own. Erik slammed on the brakes and sent her lurching forward.

An arm shot across her front, hand curling protectively around her right shoulder, pinning her back against the seat as the truck ground to a halt. It stopped just short of the deer, which had frozen in place to stare with wide eyes at the truck. Then, as if lifted from a trance, it trotted off and left them sitting speechless in the unmoving vehicle. She found she was clutching Erik's arm to the top of her chest so tightly he must have felt her every heartbeat.

"Are you alright?" His voice was soft, and she knew his eyes would be, too, were she to look up—but in her sudden mortification she couldn't bring herself to do it. She nodded, still unable to speak, limbs softly trembling. Slowly, she released her grip so he could withdraw his arm. She tried not to think about what might have happened had he not bound the canoe so securely in the truck bed, but her brain couldn't shake the image of the hull smashing through the back window.

"That," he said, "was a ten-point buck." He got the truck moving again, much slower this time. "Fortunately for him, I'm not a hunter."

She swallowed, working moisture back into her dry throat. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. "Are they on the move? Because of hunting season?"

"Yes. Turn here?"

They'd come upon the gravel drive leading to her cottage, its entrance marked by painted white letters on a forty-year-old wooden plank nailed to an oak: DAAE. She directed him to the house and was almost disappointed as the truck trundled down the steep, tree-lined slope, gravel crunching under its tires. The past thirty hours seemed like forever and somehow also not enough.

She helped him unload the canoe and move it to its resting place beside the shed. He walked her to the cottage door, his rangy darkness towering over her as she fumbled to insert the key.

"I really can't thank you enough," she said as she crossed the threshold. "I'd offer you a seat, or a drink, but as you can see…" She gave a broad sweep of her arm to indicate the stacks of boxes, the lack of furniture. Only the appliances remained; she'd be selling them with the place.

"It's fine." He stood in the doorway but did not venture further. "Are you certain you want to drive to the hotel tonight, after...?"

She shook her head. "I'm not going to risk it. There's a sleeping bag somewhere around here."

"Ah. Good."

They faced each other in silence. Her thoughts warred with each other: should she ask for his number? His email? Would it be weird to hug him? It felt too final, this parting, and she wasn't sure she wanted it to be—but clearly, he did. She had disrupted his life quite enough for one weekend, and she'd be leaving town soon regardless.

She settled on an awkward handshake, vomiting unending expressions of gratitude as he stared, mouth drawn, at their embrace. She felt every bone, every callus of his hand: how, then, could it also be so soft and consoling? He pulled away, and it was over all too quickly.

"Give Caesar belly rubs for me," she said in an attempt to couch her awkwardness.

He nodded. "And should I extend your well-wishes to the chickens?"

She couldn't help but smile. "Of course."

"Take care, then, Miss Daae." His eyes were alight as he added, "And do stay off the river." He retreated, shutting the screen door behind him, and his dark figure bled into the night.

It was only after she closed the heavy main door that she noticed what hadn't been there moments ago, perched gracefully on a nearby countertop: the carved wooden deer.

Her whole body thrummed as she picked it up. Every feeling, every sound, every scent of that strange wooded cabin washed over her: pine and firewood and damp earth, scratchy towels and crackling vinyl, buttery fish and warm bread. There was a sharp and unexpected pang of longing in her gut, almost like homesickness.

The cottage was too quiet, too empty. Christine unearthed the sleeping bag from the linen closet and was quick to roll it out and shimmy inside, but in the dark it was too easy for memories to coalesce in the space around her. She saw the knobby wooden dining table purchased from the local Amish settlement, and her father setting out cards for solitaire. She saw the paintings her grandfather had done, of flowers and sea and sails, framed and hung on the wood paneling. She saw the bunk bed on which she'd slept, painted canary-yellow and laden with faded quilts.

With a choked sob, she reached out and grabbed the deer carving and held it close.


	6. Lion

The little deer carving tugged at Christine's mind all through the next day. It was there as she drove into town, and when she patronized the little hardware store. It was there while she washed and taped the kitchen walls, and as she painted over their dingy beige with a soft butter-yellow.

Up until she'd found the doe, she'd been convinced Erik was relieved to be rid of her—not in a mean-spirited way, necessarily, but at the very least in a tired-of-company sort of way. But for him to leave such a token behind: it suggested thoughtfulness, and planning, and a  _reason_.

She was dying to know what that reason was.

Thoughts of his gift propelled her through her work on the house, but it couldn't offset the feeling of the walls closing in, of the cottage's emptiness settling on her like a weighted blanket. Occasionally she'd look out the window and half expect her dad to be there, filling the bird feeders or hacking away at the undergrowth along the riverbank. Every reminder of his absence was a dull blow to her chest.

The paint job was tedious despite its small size. By the time she finished, it was well past her usual dinner time. She sat on the floor to eat one of the sad-looking microwaveable meals she'd stockpiled in the freezer for the week, nearly dropping her fork at the sound of her phone buzzing against the wood floor beside her. It was a reminder she'd set a week before, a single word:  _Leonids_.

She'd been so excited then, at the prospect of seeing the meteor shower with minimal light pollution. Now it hollowed her insides to think of an event that would only emphasize how small and alone she was.

 _Unless_.

Her chewing slowed until she'd stopped eating entirely. Finally, in what was likely an ill-conceived and hastily rendered decision, she dumped the remains of her meal in the sink, tugged on her boots and coat, and grabbed her keys.

* * *

It was with some difficulty that she knocked on the door to the secluded cabin, her arms laden with grocery bags. The porch light was on, at least, and she tried not to focus on the way it threw shadows onto the trees, the memory of the bear still fresh in her mind.

Erik answered in his stretchy black mask this time, though the bunched fabric at his neck suggested he'd pulled it on quickly. "Miss Daae," he said, looking her up and down. "Good evening." His voice was nonplussed, but his eyes—large and wild—betrayed him.

"I'm sorry to barge in on you like this, but I didn't have your number, and I thought..." She hesitated: her plan seemed ridiculous, now that she had to voice it. "Sorry, can I put these bags down?"

He blinked and stepped aside, allowing her to slip past and dump her haul on the kitchen table. "So there's an annual meteor shower in mid-November," she said as he followed her inside. "The Leonids."

He'd casually tucked his hands into dark jean pockets, but under his ribbed navy sweater, his shoulders were rigid. "I'm familiar."

"They're supposed to peak tonight. I've always wanted to see them, but there's always too much light pollution, or it's cloudy, or too cold." Caesar blinked up at her, tail thrashing for attention, and she squatted to pet him. "This is the first chance I've had to see them on a clear night, away from the city, and it seemed..." She touched her head to the dog's as she rubbed both sides of his flank, now too embarrassed to look up. "It seemed like something I shouldn't do alone."

"That hardly explains why you've taken over my table."

"Oh. Well." She straightened and rummaged through the bags, unearthing a six-pack of beer. "I got this as a token of goodwill, and maybe also light bribery, but then I didn't know whether you like beer, so..." She brandished a bottle of red wine next. "And  _then_  I thought maybe you don't drink at all, so I got hot cocoa, too." She set the tin of cocoa on the table, and she pointed to the other bags. "That one has snacks, and the last one has blankets to compensate for my defective circulatory system."

Erik's eyes roved over the selection. "What, no marshmallows?" he asked dryly.

She pursed her lips and withdrew a package of marshmallows from the snack bag. "In the meteor viewing in my head," she confessed, "there's a bonfire."

There was a slight twist to his mouth. He exhaled slowly through his nose, and he reached for the black shell jacket hanging by the back door. He was already halfway outside when he called back over his shoulder. "Bring the alcohol, then."

* * *

It wasn't until they were fully situated that Christine let herself look up toward the heavens.

She sat in a lawn chair with her legs tucked under a red flannel blanket. Erik had built a fire with much of the wood he'd chopped the day before, and it blazed before them now, crackling and warming her face. She cupped a mug of red wine in her gloved hands because it was easier than a glass, and he nursed a beer. Caesar had stayed inside because, according to Erik, he was afraid of the fire pit.

"One typically looks to the sky for meteors," Erik quipped from the chair beside her.

She sipped at her wine, giving him a sidelong glance. "Truth be told, I'm scared it's not going to live up to my expectations."

"What is there to expect beyond flying space debris? It's hardly magic, Miss Daae."

She shrugged, noncommittal. "I mean, everything that happens way up there is a reminder of how much we haven't seen, and little we really know about anything. To me, that's pretty magical."

He stared at her for a moment. "Fair enough," he said, and he took another swig of beer.

Christine followed suit. The wine was lush and earthy, heating her insides the way the fire warmed her outsides, and her spine surrendered some of its tension. "Okay," she whispered. "Here goes." She leaned back in her chair and looked up.

The moon, as well as the dusky purple core of the Milky Way, had already set below the November horizon, leaving only an inky-black sky saturated with stars. As always, it took her breath away. Eyes wide, she combed the heavens for anything moving, anything out of the ordinary—was that even possible, among the extraordinary?—but nothing stood out. She focused her gaze on the constellation Leo, the area where the meteors were said to appear.

"They're supposed to peak around two in the morning," she said, "so I don't know how much we'll actually get to—oh!" She cut herself off with a gasp at the sight of a thin but dazzling streak of light, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Did you see that?!"

She turned to Erik, who was looking at her and not the sky, but he glanced up at the sight of the urgency in her face. All was still for another half minute before a second streak lit up the sky. She squealed before she could stop herself, clapping a hand to her mouth.

Laughter wafted into her ears: a soft, low rumble like distant thunder. "You'll forgive me, Miss Daae, if I find you more amusing than the meteor shower at present." He raised his beer to her and drank, his eyes alight.

Every inch of her sparked and crackled with exhilaration. "Keep watching, then, because I won't stop grinning like an idiot for a while."

She kept her word.

Conversation became easier as their drinks were consumed and replenished. They talked cottage life, and he offered to clean her gutters so she wouldn't have to hire someone. Then they talked music, and she recommended new artists for him to sample. All of this was done with her neck craned toward the sky, her eyes nearly going cross-eyed as she stayed vigilant for meteors. Finally, when her second mug of wine ran out, she got up to stretch.

"My neck can't handle this anymore," she announced. She spread out her blanket by the fire and lay down, hands folded over her stomach, gazing upward. "There's room if you're interested."

Erik was no longer in her field of view, but she could still detect the mild disdain in his muttered "No thank you."

"Suit yourself," she said, shrugging.

A beat of silence. "You are going to catch fire."

"And  _you_  are being hyperbolic," she replied, but when a spark landed just afield of her face, she decided that perhaps she was, in fact, a bit too close to the pit. She wriggled farther away.

The sky was now a grand, obsidian blanket overhead, bordered by lofty silhouettes of pine. She spotted a meteor every minute now: a stunning phenomenon, though she could not yet get Erik to admit it. Heat from the fire licked at her side, making her opposite half feel far more exposed.

"Well, now my right side is cold," she said with an exaggerated pout, as if to suggest it was his fault. He was silent, and she wondered whether she should clarify that she'd been teasing.

There came the crunch of brush under boot. His masked face hovered over her, and he lowered himself onto the blanket beside her. Her heartbeat picked up speed as she caught a whiff of the soapy, piney smell that had permeated his bedsheets. He laced his gloved fingers over his chest, the way she'd seen him the morning before, but his limbs and shoulders lay stiff.

"This is admittedly a better view," he conceded.

"How long since you last stargazed? Truly?"

There came a long pause. "Almost nine years, to the day."

She waited for him to elaborate, because how could he remember so specifically? But he didn't, and she had to content herself with watching the stars and meteors in silence. At one point she thought he might have even fallen asleep, and she was debating the least offensive way to wake him up when he spoke again.

"The Greeks," he said, "were obsessed with music's relationship to objects in the night sky. They called it 'the music of the spheres.'"

"Yes, I know," she replied quietly. " _Musica universalis_."

He turned his head and stared at her with eyes blazing, as though seeing her for the first time that night. The thin fabric of the mask was stretched over his face so tightly it was clear he wasn't wearing his prosthetic ear. "Forgive me," he said. "I'm unused to being rivaled, let alone outpaced, in musical knowledge."

"Well, the outpacing remains to be seen." She turned onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow to see him better. "To be honest, I don't really get the concept, anyway. It was just a blip among my musical history studies." His eyes lit up in such a way that she couldn't help but ask him to explain further, if only to watch his apathy melt away, to study every calculated gesture of his hands.

"Presumably you know how instrument pitch works?" he asked. "As in, the shorter the string, the higher the pitch." When she nodded, he went on. "So. Pythagoras held that the same dynamics were in play with celestial bodies: that is, their pull of gravity on each other created orbits, and each of those orbits emitted its own sort of hum, or resonance. Whether that resonance was actually audible was an ongoing topic of debate."

"I like that," she said. "Do you think it could work that way for people, too?"

"People do not orbit each other." He said this with a condescending arch of eyebrow, and her face heated.

"But sometimes I feel like they do," she said. "Like there are forces outside our control that pull us together, over and over again. And maybe those orbits affect who we are." Her cheeks were so hot by this point that she turned her head inward, hiding behind the curtain of hair that spilled forward. "Maybe. I don't know."

A hand swept the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. The black mask, with all that it hid, was closer now, and she couldn't read the expression there. "Tell me, then, Miss Daae—"

"Christine," she said softly.

"Christine." There was a crisp reverence in the way he said her name that made her shiver. "Tell me, then: whom do  _you_  orbit?"

"Currently?" she said, and she almost left her response at that, wanting little more than to sway into him in the thrill of the moment. But the stark reality of things cut through the alcoholic fuzz clouding her brain, and she shook her head. "No one."

"Mm. Perhaps for the best, I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

"Given what I've seen of your personality so far, you'd probably vibrate off the face of the earth."

She gave a self-effacing laugh and smacked his arm with the back of her hand. "Look, I didn't come here to be ridiculed," she retorted.

"Ah, my sincerest apologies, madam. How might I make it up to you? Another mug of wine, perhaps?"

Her jaw, now aching from the force of her grin, went sedate with sudden clarity. "Tell me something," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Something about yourself. Something meaningful."

His gaze dropped down to the blanket. With his wry smile faded, it was easier to notice the waxy ridges where his eyebrows should have been. The asymmetry of his warped nostrils. The eyelids that looked as though they'd been ironed out. "I was in the Army, once."

The relief that flooded her chest was immeasurable, but she could still only whisper her confession. "I saw a photo of you, in uniform. With another soldier. It fell out of one of your books."

"Ah." It was only the slightest flicker of surprise that gave way to a somber nod. "Then you know that this"—he gestured generally to his face—"was not always this way."

She swallowed. "Yes."

He absently flexed his hand, balling it into a fist and watching as the black leather tightened over his knuckles. "The thing about modern body armor," he said, "is that it's become so increasingly effective, you can survive an otherwise fatal blast from a roadside bomb and leave with only horrific facial injuries."

She flinched. "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "Surgery restored some of its shape, at least. They would have never been able to restore it fully, so I stopped after twelve operations. It grew tiresome."

Christine nodded her understanding. "So you pulled away instead? And came here?"

He blinked. "Is that why you think I've isolated myself? Because I am so vain as to mold my life around the perceptions of strangers? How disappointingly reductive."

His words were a punch to the gut. "Then why so bitter?" she challenged him. "Why stay holed up here, all alone?"

He huffed and lay back on the blanket, returning his gaze to the sky. "We have known each other for three days, Miss Daae. I owe you nothing."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It feels like it's been longer."

He exhaled audibly. "It does."

They returned to their silent observation. The wind shifted, blowing some of the smoke from the bonfire in their direction, and with a stunted cough she angled herself away from it. Her arm brushed against Erik's, and she thought she felt him shudder beneath his heavy jacket. Flashes of that same arm, pinning her to the passenger seat of the truck, flooded her memory and set her pulse racing.

She suddenly remembered the carved deer she'd stowed in her coat pocket, and she took it out, running her thumb over its haunches as she held it up for him to see. "You left this behind," she said.

"I did."

"Why?"

A pause. "You seemed like you needed it more than I did."

She did not—could not—respond. Tears stung her eyes.

Slowly, carefully, she inched her hand over until it brushed his. There was a collective hitch of breath as she hooked her pinky around his little finger, and she stopped there, terrified of pushing any further.

It felt like eons before the leather glove slid up her hand, lithe fingers twining through hers. "You are not driving back tonight," came that sonorous voice.

Social convention dictated that she initiate an exchange of "I couldn't possibly" and "but I insist"...but what was the point? She didn't want to drive in the dark, least of all with the alcohol still lingering in her blood, and he wanted her to stay.

"Okay," she whispered.

His grip on her hand tightened, and when she settled back to watch the stars again, everything seemed brighter somehow.


	7. Hen

For a long time, Christine was afraid to move.

Her legs were headed into achingly cold territory, but she'd have almost preferred frostbite to giving up the pressure of Erik's gloved fingers on hers. How was it possible for such a small touch to both soothe and excite? Her spine had softened into the flannel blanket beneath it, her shoulders slackened, yet her insides sparked in a way that echoed the meteors darting overhead.

Every one of her senses had awakened to his grip, and she was startlingly aware of her surroundings: the rolling snaps and hisses of the bonfire; the crisp, smoky scent of the burning wood; the treetops tenting into a starry sky and, far below them, her breath coalescing into crystalline puffs.

She felt, as Erik had put it, as though she might vibrate off the face of the earth.

Her time-honored anxiety was swift to creep in and pepper her with questions. What did this mean? What should she do next? Would he try to kiss her? Did she want him to kiss her?

She almost scoffed out loud. If there was one thing she'd never found cause to protest, it was kissing.

No, she was getting ahead of herself. Even without seeing him, she could detect his stiffness of frame. The hand-holding had been a remarkable concession on his part. For now, it was enough. It was more than enough.

She should have been content to lie in silence, to not risk ruining the moment, but the wine had loosened her tongue. She held in her words until she thought her chest might burst, and then they tumbled over her lips like a flood through a dam.

"There's something grounding about the night sky, isn't there? Like the world around you might be crumbling to pieces, but it's all so inconsequential in the grand, beautiful scheme of things."

"A cold comfort when one is still mired in a cesspool of crooks and tyrants."

She shifted to look at him. "Why do you dislike people so much?"

His gaze stayed trained on the sky, but his grip stiffened. Tension, hot and jittery, erected itself like a barricade around him. "With few exceptions, they disappoint when it matters most."

She could not resist. "Am I a disappointment, or an exception?"

"That remains to be seen." His tone was light; the thumb of his clasped hand brushed against hers.

"And what must I do to earn your good opinion, sir?"

"Sing for me."

Still he did not look at her, and she studied his impassive expression, his drawn mouth. "Again? Here?"

"Yes."

His demand for her voice sent a bolt of warmth arcing through her chest. She lay her head back on the blanket and released a long, audible breath. What to sing? She looked to the sky for inspiration, and she let the words spill out before she could overthink them.

Look at the stars  
Look how they shine for you

The pair of them lay parallel and unmoving beneath those stars, staring upward, their joined hands in the space between them their only point of contact, of movement. Erik's fingers twitched as she sang; his grip tightened on a particular lilt of her voice.

She sang three verses and a chorus before she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't really remember the rest."

He was silent for a long moment, and she turned to find he'd closed his eyes. He flexed his hand, fingers loosening and tightening around hers once more. Then he did look at her, and she was surprised, as always, by how bright his dark eyes could burn.

"Why did you come back?"

The question came without preamble, catching her off guard. "I..." Her mouth could not seem to form words. "I don't know." A pause. "Should I not have?"

He released a shaky breath. "I don't know."

There it was again: that mysterious and tiresome inner struggle of his. What was he afraid of? It felt too soon to pry, his thoughts far too distant, but wine and fire and strong, bony hands had weakened her inhibitions. "You can take off the mask," she said quietly. "Please. I don't mind." Did she? Maybe it was the alcohol, but she felt a small surge of confidence as she said it.

Erik's jaw tightened. "I would rather not," he said, and he released his grip on her, returning the gloved hand to its former resting place on his sallow chest.

The contents of her stomach roiled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't—"

"I don't want to discuss it."

She could have kicked herself. She clenched her teeth in frustration: frustration at him, certainly, but even more at herself. She'd brought up his face too soon, far too soon, and it was decidedly unromantic to boot. The tender seedling of intimacy that she'd coaxed out of hiding was curling in on itself, retreating to where it had lain dormant beneath a layer of frost.

She had no hope of rekindling whatever wonderful thing had just passed between them, but the thought of him staying angry at her was too much to bear, and so she was determined to diffuse the tension by any means necessary. She combed through a mental filing cabinet of topics to broach and, as was often the case in these high-stakes scenarios, her brain short-circuited.

"Do chickens sleep?"

A strangled noise emerged from his throat. "What?"

"I mean, I assume they do. I've just never seen a sleeping chicken, or even a picture of one."

Erik briefly closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course they sleep."

She propped herself up on an elbow to face him. "Do they bury their faces in their back feathers in that adorable way that other birds do?"

"Sometimes."

She bit her lip in an attempt against further questions, but she was too invested now that it was clear how little she actually knew about keeping chickens. "Do they have...like...little beds?" she asked. A horrible idea lodged itself in her brain, and she couldn't stop herself. She leaned in and added, "Perhaps...featherbeds?"

He turned to glare at her, and her spirits lifted at the sound of his exaggerated sigh. "If I show you the sleeping chickens," he said, "you must enter into a binding verbal contract to cease all puns."

"I'll never agree to that," she replied, getting to her feet, "but I'm going to make you show me regardless." To her surprise, Erik shrugged and rose from the blanket without protest. She set to collecting the discarded wine mug and beer bottles and blanket as he headed for the coop. He'd unlatched the door and was waiting for her in the fenced-in run as she made her way, arms laden, to the back door. "Just going to dump this stuff inside," she said, and she opened the door quickly in an effort to keep from dropping everything.

A white blur shot out of the kitchen. It was followed by a cacophony of frantic squawking and fluttering and barking that spurred her into urgency. She dumped her effects on the kitchen table and rushed back outside, where Erik held a straining dog by the collar as the hens scuttled in every direction. One had already made its way out the door.

"Grab Siebel," Erik called to her.

She looked at him in wild-eyed disbelief, but his focus was on Caesar, who lunged even more excitedly at the sight of the hen scampering out into the open yard.

Christine lunged for Siebel, but the chicken evaded her. She hung back for a moment, letting it grow accustomed to her presence, but the kitchen and bonfire threw only so much light out into the deep woods. If she didn't act quickly, she'd lose sight of the chicken altogether. With two quick, giant steps that sent pain shooting through her sore ankle, she managed to snatch up Siebel in both hands.

She was met with a violent frenzy of flapping wings and pinching talons, and a sharp beak that jabbed at her fingers. Feathers hit her in the face, knocking her glasses askew and mussing her hair. She let out a distressed squeak and held the hen at arm's length, and as she leaned back to avoid the feathery maelstrom, something caught her by the hair. She shrieked.

The hen was extracted from her grip, settling into complacency as Erik's hands closed gently over its wings. Christine whipped around to see what had gotten hold of her: a low pine, the needles having worked themselves into the thick tangles that were no doubt formed as she lay on the blanket. She winced and yanked the branch free of her scalp.

Erik's back was to her as he latched the door to the peacefully restored chicken coop. There was a strange sort of hunch to his frame, as though he'd become ill, and it took her a moment to realize he was shaking with silent laughter.

She stayed rooted to the spot, still too stunned to speak.

His lips were drawn tight when he approached her, more laughter threatening to spill forward at any second. "Forgive me," he said, wiping at his eyes, "but was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed."

Her cheeks were hot, but she managed to produce a weak smile. "It seems I have a lot to learn about chickens," she replied. "Where's Caesar?"

"Back inside."

She tugged off her gloves. Her hands stung, and even in the dim light she could see they'd been scratched and punctured by Siebel's sharp beak and talons.

"You're injured," Erik observed. "I apologize; I should not have made light of it."

She shook her head. "It was objectively funny. I'm sure I'll laugh once I can breathe again."

"Regardless." He opened the door, pinning a sheepish Caesar to the kitchen floor with a stern look, and motioned for her to go inside.

"I'm so sorry," she said as she slipped past him. "I didn't think—the dog—"

He waved her words away. "He would never hurt them. He endeavors to get as close as possible before they peck him. It's a masochistic sort of pastime."

Once they'd shed their outerwear, he led her to the bathroom, where he pulled ointment and adhesive bandages from a high shelf in the cabinet. "Let me see," he instructed. She hoisted herself up onto the counter so she'd be closer to his eye level.

Oddly, he began his examination at the crown of her head. "Hm," he murmured. "Hold still." He set a palm at one side of her head to anchor her, and with deftly cautious fingers, he plucked a pine needle from her hair. Her cheeks flamed, and she'd opened her mouth to thank him when he extracted a second needle. And then another. And another. Six, in total, laid in a small pile at her side.

Once he'd finished, he cupped the other side of her head to check his handiwork, in effect cradling her face in his hands. He seemed to register this new intimacy at the same time she did, his eyes flicking to hers and away before he let her go. "Your hands," he said, as gruffly as a smooth-edged voice would ever get. She held them out for inspection.

The scene was an echo of when he'd doctored her ankle, his sinewy hands working with dexterous precision—but he was even closer now, his head bent forward as he dabbed ointment onto her skin. The smell of the bonfire lingered on his clothes. She was almost thankful that every inch of her hands stung under his ministrations, because it kept the more intrusive thoughts at bay.

He released her in order to cap the ointment, and she took a good look at her hands. At the sight of the myriad tiny cuts, all chicken-inflicted, she started laughing.

It was a gradual, rolling laughter that built in her chest and expanded into her belly, until she was nearly doubling over as it became harder to breathe. Erik stopped what he was doing and watched as she was driven to near tears. His face was inscrutable, but his eyes shone.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped. "It's just...after this, and the river, and the bear..." She shook her head. "You must think I'm an idiot."

His lips took on a wry twist. "Perhaps you show a certain ineptitude for wilderness survival," he replied. "But, to your credit, you are remarkably adaptable." He peeled open the first of the band-aids and wrapped it around her index finger, which had sustained the worst of the abrasions. His next words were uttered with quiet reluctance, like a confession: "No one short on intellect could sing so well."

Christine had never been one to take compliments well. She blinked. "I don't understand why you like my voice so much."

He was focused on bandaging a second finger, but based on the way his neck muscles constricted in response, she suspected he'd have avoided eye contact regardless. "It's as if," he said softly, "it drifted straight out of a dream."

"Like...like ethereal? Because I don't think—"

He cut her off with a shake of his head, and his voice went even quieter. "A dream of mine, specifically. As though…" He paused to bandage another finger. "As though my subconscious willed into existence what it most wanted to hear."

He closed the box of bandages and reached up to return the supplies to the cabinet above her head. The motion brought him so close to her that his sweater brushed against her cheek.

It was too much. He had pulled her into his orbit long ago—she could finally admit as much—but now that orbit tightened, and her whole body thrummed at the new proximity. To get any closer, though: that would disrupt the respectful balance they'd created.

Then again, under the rarest of circumstances, stars were known to collide in a brilliant surge of heat.

His eyes met hers as he lowered his arm from the cabinet, and he must have seen the longing plain in her face because he slowed. His hand, instead of dropping to his side, slid under a loose strand of hair at her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Her hands found his waist and hovered there, scarcely touching. He cupped the back of her head.

It was with agonizing slowness that they drew closer. She all but stopped breathing, yet her heart beat so fiercely it hurt. Erik's breaths were heavy and measured. His face dipped down to hers, so close there was now only shadow where his features had once been. She lifted her chin just slightly. When she closed her eyes, she felt his breath against her lips.

But he moved past them, skewing off to one side, his masked cheek sliding against hers. His lips brushed against the pulse point beneath her ear; his breath was hot on her skin. "Christine," he whispered, her name a cutting prayer on his tongue. "I don't—I can't—"

Her fingers grasped gently at the hem of his sweater. "What is it?"

"This is...unwise."

"So was canoeing the river," she whispered back, "but I don't regret it at all."

There was a huff of air against her neck, and he dragged his lips onto hers.

Her own mouth parted to accept him, a tiny whimper of gratitude sounding in her throat. He was so soft, an anomaly among his rigid thinness, and she sank into the lush heat of his mouth with easy abandon. Theirs was a slow duet: a sweeping exchange of pressure, of lips parting and closing again. It felt almost unreal that she should be here, kissing this strange woodsman who had been so prickly at the outset, yet it felt comfortingly familiar, even as her toes curled at the press of his lips.

He was the one to pull away, and all too soon. His wide eyes were as alarmed as they'd been when she'd first arrived. His hand fell from the back of her head, and he took a few wary steps backward. "It's late," he said hoarsely. "We—you—should sleep. The bed is yours."

"But—"

"I have to put out the fire. Don't wait up on my account." He was out the door like a shot.

Dazed, Christine slid off the countertop to look in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her lips rosy and swollen, her hair basically a tumbleweed. She worked through the knots with her fingers and tried to sort out the hundred thoughts warring for her attention, but she was tired, and Erik had kissed her. His reluctance both before and after were of no consequence to her right now—not when she wanted to go to bed unencumbered by doubt, with only the memory of his kiss to carry her into dreamland.

She finished untangling her hair and glanced down at the available toiletries. There, in the toothbrush holder, was the spare toothbrush she'd used—the one she'd had no expectation of ever using again, once they'd parted with no means of contact. He had kept it.

Erik was nowhere to be seen when she emerged from the bathroom, so she kept to his wishes and didn't wait. She slid under the covers of his bed and smiled sleepily to herself: the sheets still smelled like him, as did the pillow beneath her head. She closed her eyes and replayed the kiss over and over in her mind, until she was nothing but blank thoughts and heavy limbs, and a slowing heart that had begun to beat for someone else.


	8. Nightingale

It was a combination of a clatter and a heavy  _thunk_ that made Christine shoot up in Erik's bed. Her hand shaking, she felt around the nightstand for her glasses. The alarm clock read 4:05.

She swung her legs out from under the covers while she waited for her eyes to adjust, but in the moonless night, the room stayed black. She inched over to the door and felt around for the knob. Her heart hammered as she peered into the living room.

It was his silhouette she made out first: the tense, wiry length of him, outlined by the distant glow of the bathroom nightlight. His breathing reached her ears next, heavy and arrhythmic and too fast for comfort.

Further details developed: a bulky object in one hand. A white undershirt that emphasized the narrow cut of waist and hips. The same dark jeans. Dark hair, mussed and glossy, at the back of his head.

Dark hair, unencumbered by a mask.

He whipped around to face her, and her stomach curled.

She'd forgotten the alienness of it all, the way the exposed skin seemed to narrow his dark eyes so he looked almost predatory. Maybe it was the lack of eyebrows, or the way cheeks and brow seemed to melt into eyelids with little distinction between features. Or perhaps it was the missing ear and chunk of nose, the puckered and discolored flesh: the desecrated remains of a fiery battleground.

He seemed to look straight through her, eyes wide and chest heaving, the muscles of his bare arm flexing with the force of his grip on what was decidedly a table lamp. It took a forceful blink for him to register her presence.

With a shuddering gasp, he covered his face with his free arm and turned away.

He hunched forward, his long spine curling in on itself. One hand tore at a tangled wad of blanket on the floor, while the other let go of the lamp base. It fell the short distance to the floor with a soft  _thud_.

Christine stood motionless behind him while he clawed at the linens. Then, with a growl of frustration, he hurled the blanket aside and started overturning couch cushions.

"Erik," she called sharply. He froze. Slowly, his spine unfurled until he was back to his usual rigid height. His arms fell to his sides in surrender, the fingers of one hand twitching against his jeans. He was silent save for his frenetic breathing.

Her gaze trailed over the taut ridges of his shoulder blades, and she lowered her voice. "What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

His hands balled into fists. "It seems I have mislaid my mask."

She padded across the cold wood floor in her bare feet, and she curled a hand around his forearm. He trembled against her touch. "Hey," she said. "Look at me." When he didn't budge, her voice softened further, the way it did when she had to comfort a student. "Erik. It's okay."

His head hung. He exhaled deeply and turned, not quite able to meet her gaze.

It was just as well, in that moment. Even in shadow, the waxy shapelessness of his facial features still unsettled her. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from grimacing, to will herself to get used to the sight. She was accustomed to hiding emotion for the sake of the kids, especially in times of crisis; she could wear a mask of her own.

Christine forced a smile. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Perhaps she'd intended the question for herself as much as she had him. She followed the outline of his dry lips, her memory of their softness on her mouth still fresh and exhilarating. She met the familiar dark eyes that had begun to look at her differently of late, and she found herself fighting the urge to palm his ravaged cheek. It would probably only spook him further.

A tilt of his head, and his eyes caught the light: they were glassy with unshed tears. "How can you stand it?" he whispered. A strand of hair clung damply to his glistening forehead.

"There's nothing to stand." With an impish bite of lip, she ran a fingertip down his bare forearm until she could thread her fingers through his. "But maybe I like you. Just a little bit."

He sighed. "And here I thought you were reasonably intelligent." He looked down at her warmly, head cocked just so, and she swayed forward in anticipation of his mouth settling on hers. Instead, his eyes locked onto something behind her, and he pulled away.

It was the mask: he'd spotted it on the floor near the sofa, and he swept it up and pulled it over his head. She watched him warily as he picked up the lamp base and, farther away, the lamp shade. "Knocked this over," he said, and he restored the now-intact object to its rightful position on the end table by the sofa.

"Doing what?"

He balled up the blanket and tossed it onto the couch. "Nothing of concern. Go back to sleep."

She crossed her arms. "I'm not going to if I think you have some sort of medical condition. Your breathing, Erik—"

"And I said it was not of your concern," he snapped, rounding on her. "This is far from the first occurrence, and it will hardly be the last." Even in the dim light, she saw it the moment his face slackened: he'd revealed too much. She imagined his cheeks coloring beneath the mask.

She edged closer and, when he couldn't meet her eyes, slipped her hand through his. "What sort of occurrence?" she asked, but his jaw only tightened in response. She sighed. "How often, then?"

He hesitated. "Two, three times a week."

"And you go back to sleep after?"

"...No."

_Oh, Erik_. "You need to sleep. Come on." Against his protests, she dragged him into the bedroom, where she pulled down the covers and shoved him by his shoulders onto the mattress. It put him at her eye level, sitting there, but it was difficult to make out his expression with only the faint light outside the room to go by.

"You rest here," she said, "and I'll take the couch." She started to back away, but her breath hitched as he grabbed her wrist. He pulled her in closer, until her legs just brushed his sharp kneecaps. He kept her there, at arm's length, and did not let go. His breaths had slowed and evened, but occasionally one would shake and crackle, a wrinkle left to be ironed out.

Her stomach flipped. "Do you...want me to stay?"

His mouth opened and closed again, and he expelled air from his nose. "No," he said. "No, you should sleep."

"You're sure?"

He nodded and released her arm. The chill she felt in the absence of his grip made it difficult for her to rein in her disappointment, and it was with reluctance that she grabbed her socks from the bedside and closed the door behind her.

It was colder out on the sofa. She sat to put on the socks, tucking them under the cuffs of her fleece leggings. Minutes later, as she brushed her teeth to curb the onset of morning breath, she realized she hadn't seen Caesar this whole time.

She found him cowering under the kitchen table, chin resting on outstretched paws, wide eyes suggesting unspeakable horrors. She laughed sympathetically. "You poor puppy! Did that loud noise scare you?" She scratched behind his ears. "It's okay, buddy. You can come out now." She plied him with affection until his tail picked up speed and he inched forward to lick her face.

She cast another glance at the bedroom door as she saw Caesar to his doggy bed. She didn't want to make assumptions, but everything about this scenario, everything about Erik's demeanor, suggested some sort of night terror. What other recurring event would upend a lamp? Would make him not want to fall back sleep?

Maybe it wasn't that he didn't  _want_ to sleep, she realized: maybe he  _couldn't_. Yet she'd sent him off to bed as though that would solve everything.

She filled a glass of water and went back into the bedroom.

Erik had moved to the far side of the bed, the one opposite the nightstand. He lay motionless with his back to her, and she might have been convinced of his unconsciousness had he actually been under the covers. As it was, he lay on top of them, still in short sleeves and bare feet.

She set the glass on the nightstand, and she crawled across the bed to lie behind him, head propped up on her hand.

The pillow muffled his crankiness. "What," he mumbled, "are you doing?"

"Helping you sleep?"

"Which will not happen, as stated previously." He rolled onto his back. His voice was dry, teetering at the edge of gravelly. "Not that I could sleep regardless, with you jostling the bed like a herd of wildebeest."

She ignored him. "I brought you some water."

Wordlessly, he shifted to a sitting position. She followed suit and passed him the water. Rangy hands roamed over hers, feeling for the glass in the dark, making her shiver.

Once the glass had been returned to the nightstand, he slid back onto his side, facing away from her once more. "If that will be all, then, you are free to go."

She stared at him for a long moment, and then she wriggled under the covers beside him. "Are you upset because of what happened, or upset because I saw you?"

"More than anything I am annoyed," he snapped, "by this incessant do-gooder provocation."

Christine afforded herself an eyeroll, knowing he couldn't see, but she kept her voice neutral. "Well. I'll be here if you decide you want to talk." She lay back on the pillow, lacing her fingers over her abdomen. She had more than enough experience with childish outbursts to be rattled by this one.

They lay in silence for a good five minutes, long enough for him to realize she did not intend to leave. She would fall asleep there if she had to, and in fact, she was getting close. Then he rolled onto his back beside her, so that their shoulders almost touched. She held her tongue and waited.

Eventually, he slid under the covers. He sought out her hand, absently rubbing his thumb over hers until words started to form, reluctant and slow.

"The night before the roadside bomb," he said, "the sky was deep and clear, as it is tonight. I recall Nadir pointing out Saturn. It was cold in the desert, too, that night."

She risked a glance at his face; his eyes were closed.

"In the morning," he continued, "I left with a small convoy from psyops. One of the specialists was going to teach a counterfeiting seminar to Iraqi police officers."

"Psyops?"

"Psychological operations. Propaganda, basically. They work to increase sympathy for the U.S., or dislike for the opposition—whatever the military needs at the time. I was stationed with one of their units as an interpreter."

"And that's what you were doing that morning? Interpreting?"

"That was the assignment, yes." He swallowed audibly. "Needless to say, we did not make it to the police station."

"And that was when...?" She made a circular gesture toward her face.

"Yes."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not one of the men who left the scene in a body bag."

Now it was her turn to close her eyes, to shut out the sting of fresh tears now welling up there. "Do you feel guilty?" she whispered.

"Every day," he said, "for nine years."

She exhaled a shaky breath and rolled over, pressing herself to his side, stretching an arm across his chest. She felt his heartbeat skitter as she brought her head to rest on his shoulder. "And so you dream about them," she said softly.

"Sometimes," he conceded. "Sometimes, there is no convoy: only me. But there is always an explosion." Gently, as though trying not to spook her, he curled an arm around her and rested his hand at the back of her head.

Christine settled easily into the embrace. Between the warmth of the bed and the slowing susurration of his heart, she found her eyelids fluttering, and she forced them open. There was no guarantee Erik would be this forthcoming later, in the daytime, under normal circumstances.

"Is that how the lamp fell over?" she asked. "From when you dreamt these things?"

"Yes." His fingertips skated down to her neck and back up again, making her shiver. "My movements are...violent. Unpredictable. There is a reason this room is sparse."

"But you were forced to sleep somewhere else," she realized, "because of me."

Erik shrugged. "It was a calculated risk."

She plied him with more questions about his nightmares; he gave up reluctant answers. He'd tried various forms of treatment, she learned, save for the therapy that he continued to refuse "for various and sundry reasons," a phrase that was uttered tartly. Medications had helped somewhat, but they left him too drowsy to work, and he had been forced to stop.

"Perhaps it is a deserved punishment," he concluded.

She tensed. "For what?"

"For my actions overseas. The actions I saw and never questioned."

"Whatever it was, you were only following orders."

"As were the Nazis."

"You can't seriously equate the two!"

"I suppose not." Erik let out a soft, sarcastic bark of laughter. "Not yet, at any rate." He absently stroked her hair.

It was all so bleak and ominous, this world he was painting in her head. It reminded her of how little she knew of him, how many more secrets he had yet to reveal. The shed, for instance.

At this rate,  _she_  was going to have nightmares.

"Well. I can't stop the nightmares," she said, "or fix anything on a larger scale, but I can at least help you fall back asleep. Maybe what you need is someone to distract you."

Erik's heartbeat quickened just slightly. "And how do you propose to do so?"

She didn't know what she would have said had he not set her own pulse racing, but it was obvious what she wanted now. "I've heard kissing can help you sleep," she chirped. Her voice sounded so timid in her ears.

The hand at her head froze. After a beat of silence, Erik withdrew his arm and rolled onto his side, into her. "Is that so?" he asked. His voice slid deeper than usual, practically a murmur, thick with unspoken promise. Even as he spoke, his face moved closer.

Its tug was inescapable, this orbit of his, and she found herself leaning in. "Mmhmm," she said. "Something to do with dopamine, maybe? There was a study—"

His mouth cut her off, swallowing her soft murmur of appreciation, carrying with it a wave of heat that swept all the way down to her toes. Whereas their previous kiss had been born of gentle desperation, this one felt more like an inquest: calculating, exploratory. Would she enjoy it if he angled his head this way, with deeper pressure? Or if he tilted it the other way, catching her bottom lip in the process, tugging at it with teasing sweetness?

She would, and she did. She liked it all.

When they separated, he cupped her chin and dragged the callused pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. "No," he murmured. "No, this has evoked quite the opposite effect." All she had to do was smile against the pull of his thumb, and his lips were on hers again. She did not protest.

"I ought to leave," he said, upon pulling away. "I will not have you stay up on my account."

"Hey now, I still have untapped insomnia remedies here."

A small grunt of amusement sounded in his throat. "Ah. Do tell, then."

"I could try something my dad used to do, but…" She hesitated. "Would you be willing to take off the mask? You can turn the other way. It has nothing to do with your face, I promise."

The resulting silence was so heavy that she dismissed that option out of hand and started brainstorming other ideas. She was debating whether to tuck him into some kind of blanket burrito when he flipped over, his back to her once more, and tugged off the mask.

"Oh," she said, breathlessly. "Okay."

It never ceased to amaze her, the otherworldly things that could happen in the small hours between sleeping and waking. It was as though everything occurred with the same characters, in the same setting, but on a separate plane. When had she ever had a normal interaction at four o'clock in the morning?

Christine was maneuvering the covers over both of them when Erik spoke. "You were on good terms with him, then?"

"Who?"

"Your father."

"Oh. Yeah. Of course." She lay at his back, her pulse racing at the absurdity of what she was about to do, and moved to drape an arm over his waist.

"Forgive me," he said. "You have yet to mention him outside of his passing."

Her hand froze at his rib cage. Was that true? No, it couldn't be. It had always been the two of them, Daddy and his Little Lotte, attached at the hip. She was here to sell his cottage, for God's sake. Surely he'd come up at least once in all the conversations she'd had with Erik over the past few days.

She couldn't think of a single instance. The hollow of her chest went cold.

"This is your grand plan?" Erik interrupted, making her start. "Your hand at my ribs? Osmosis?"

"Sorry. No." She slid her arm over his midsection, where the muscles constricted under his touch. "Okay, close your eyes."

With the other arm, she reached for his temple. The hair edging his face was still damp with perspiration, so she slid her hand farther back, where the hair was dry and soft and she could run her fingers through it. Over and over she did this, in the soothing way her father had, and as the tension in Erik's back finally began to dissolve, she sang.

They were all Disney-movie lullabies, the ones that had lulled her to sleep as a child, and she sang them now to a grown man who perhaps needed that comfort and security as much as she had then. He would never admit as much, of course. In fact, he followed the lullaby from  _Lady and the Tramp_  with muttered complaints of "infantile ridiculousness" and "unnecessary coddling," but his words had begun to lose their sharpness, their shape.

She pressed on, softly crooning the nightingale song from Cinderella. This time, her efforts were rewarded. "You are the very nightingale," he murmured, "of which you sing."

Christine smiled to herself. "Only the males sing, you know."

"Stop talking and accept the compliment."

His running commentary only strengthened her resolve; she combed her fingers through his hair with renewed tenderness, and she launched into the one melody that had never failed to make her head hit the pillow.

_Stay awake, don't rest your head._  
_Don't lie down upon your bed._  
_While the moon drifts in the skies,  
_ _Stay awake, don't close your eyes._

Even she felt the pull of her own song. Her voice wavered and cracked in the second verse, and though Erik said nothing, she felt obligated to call out her mistakes. "Sorry," she said afterward, and she pressed in closer to him. "I'm no Julie Andrews."

"Mm." His voice was thick with sleep. He curled a lazy arm around hers where it hung over his waist, and he held fast. "I imagine your father was a spitting image." The words tumbled drowsily from his lips, each one quieter than the last, to make room for the deep, measured breaths of the unconscious.

She might have laughed out loud, were she not so tired herself. She gave in to the leaden pull of her eyelids, and she followed him to sleep.


	9. Wolf

Christine stirred only once in those early morning hours. She had shifted in her sleep, her back now turned to Erik, and she woke to the bed shifting behind her. There was a dip in the mattress and a tug at the bedcovers, and a heavy arm curled around her waist, pulling her in. Deep, steady breaths warmed the back of her neck. She fell back asleep.

When she awoke for the day, she was alone.

The cabin smelled of baking bread. Erik was shuffling around in the kitchen as she slipped into the bathroom, and still there when she entered a few minutes later. He was snapping leaves and stems off the potted herbs in the windowsill, ones she hadn't noticed were there. He'd put the mask back on, but he wore a sweater in stone blue, the lightest color she'd seen on him so far. It softened his frame, even the narrow forearms exposed by rolled-up sleeves.

The lean muscle in those same arms flexed as he chopped the herbs, and she was reminded of their swift, strong movements: catching and righting her as she'd stumbled; pinning her to the passenger seat at a moment's notice; cleaving logs in two.

Even Army interpreters would have to undergo combat training. What else were those arms equipped to do? What else had they done?

She moved in beside him, placing her hand at the small of his back. He stiffened, but she leaned her head against his shoulder regardless. He smelled like chives. "Hi," she said.

His voice was a quiet rumble that set her skin vibrating. "I hope you do not make it a habit," he replied, "of sneaking up on people with knives."

"I do if they sneak out on me."

He set his knife on the cutting board and turned. His face was as expressionless as ever, and even his eyes—those dark windows from which she sought reassurance—were unreadable. "It was early. I thought it best to let you sleep."

"You should have been the one sleeping in."

He shook his head. "Alas, I have a deadline." He spoke with an unsettling aloofness: the softness and vulnerability of last night had frosted over, and the air around him was charged with tension.

Her face heated and fell. It was Tuesday, of course, but the days of the week had become jumbled and meaningless of late. In the meantime, she'd begun to inhabit his home as though it were a bed and breakfast (though in her defense, the amenities bore all the qualities of a woodland bed and breakfast).

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll get out of your hair soon; I promise."

"Sit," he demanded. The knife was back in his hand, and he aimed it at her pointedly.

"Yes, sir." She scampered over to the dining table, nearly tripping over Caesar in the process, and was promptly served a mug of coffee.

The fridge was opened, and ingredients transferred to the counter: a block of pale yellow cheese, milk and butter, eggs colored a light toffee-brown.

"That's a lot of dairy," she said. "Maybe you need a cow, too."

"Ah, yes, the ubiquitous forest cow. Pine-fed, I presume?"

"Don't be ridiculous; everyone knows cows eat vines."

He pivoted to face her. "I beg your pardon?"

She hated herself even as she said it, but years of child-friendly humor had been hardwired into her brain. "You know. Bovines."

He blinked. "Give me one reason why I should not hit you with this spatula."

"Because you adore the sound of my voice?" she replied, batting her eyelashes.

His face twisted into something like a grimace. "Be that as it may, you are teetering on the edge of my good favor." He brandished the spatula in her direction before turning back to the counter, and she smiled to herself: the presence of humor, dry as it was, eased some of her anxiety.

She contented herself with coffee and wi-fi as he cooked. Most notable was a text from Meg— _Reconsider Thanksgiving dinner?_ —followed by an excess of turkey and wineglass emojis.

Christine had planned to spend the holiday alone, not out of any particular desire to do so but because her friends would be dining with Raoul's family. She knew almost nothing of the de Chagnys except that they were incredibly wealthy, and that was enough to scare her off.  _I'm good_ , she texted back,  _but thanks_.

She glanced up at Erik, at the sharp corrugation of shoulder blades as he manned the stove. Thanksgiving was only two days away, yet two days with him contained half a lifetime of possibilities. Where would they be then? Would he want to spend the day with her?

Eventually, he set a plate in front of her: an herbed omelette, with buttered toast. When he joined her at the table with his coffee, there was an agitated air to his silence, and an impatience in the way his long fingers tapped at the ceramic mug.

He was still upset about the previous night's events, she decided. She unfolded a napkin over her lap with feigned nonchalance. "Should we maybe talk about last night?"

His jaw tightened. "Best to leave shadows in the darkness," he said, "lest they eat away at the daylight, too."

Christine frowned and salted her omelette. It was difficult to argue with someone who spoke in metaphors.

"What we ought to talk about," he continued, "are our intentions."

Her mouth went dry. "I'm sorry?"

"Make no mistake: I have enjoyed your company. But anything beyond that…" Under the weight of her incredulous stare, he stared down into his coffee. "It would not fit in with my life at present."

She'd heard similar statements before, usually following an awkward first date. But this was different: there was chemistry, there was substance, there was some unexplainable force drawing them together and she could not, for the life of her, believe he didn't feel that. It was an injustice to both of them; it cut through her forgiving exterior and drew out a base instinct to fight.

She put down her fork and leaned back in her chair. "Let me guess: it's not me, it's you? You're not looking for a relationship right now, we're on different paths in life, blah blah blah. Am I on the right track?"

His face slackened. "Perhaps, but that is...reductive."

"You're such a cliche," she told him, shaking her head. "The lone wolf, ready to shut down at a moment's notice. Heaven forbid people know you have  _feelings_."

Erik's mouth pulled into a taut line; his hands tightened around his mug. "Be that as it may, your presence here is transient. How did you expect this to play out?"

"I had no expectations!" she retorted. "Sometimes it's nice to just enjoy things, in the moment, while they last."

"I find it difficult to enjoy what is hurtling toward its inevitable conclusion."

"And yet you didn't stop it."

"If I recall correctly, it was  _you_ who showed up unannounced, after what ought to have been a definitive parting."

"But you kissed me!"

Erik hesitated. "As I said at the time, it was...unwise." He loosened the collar of his sweater, still unable to meet her gaze. "I should not have done it. I apologize."

Had they been more intimate, she might have called out his idiocy; as it was, however, she bit her tongue. "Will you at least tell me what's holding you back?" she asked. "Even if it's me. I can't deal with this cryptic nonsense, Erik. It's not how normal people communicate."

He exhaled, pinched the bridge of his nose. "Though I do understand your frustration, to elaborate, Christine, as you would have me do..." He looked at her—really  _looked_ at her—for the first time that morning. "I do not exaggerate when I say it would be a threat to one's safety."

"Mine or yours?"

"Both."

Slowly, she turned his words over in her mind. They began to pick up speed and force, swirling around her head, whipping themselves into a violent tempest: he really didn't want her here, he wasn't going to cave, she'd made things worse by showing up. Her stomach began to fold in on itself, and she set down her fork, her appetite diminished.

"Okay," she said, more quietly now. "In that case, I've taken far too much advantage of your hospitality. Let me help around the house to make up for the time I've wasted, and then I'll go."

"I did not mean to imply a waste of t—"

"Just tell me what I can do," she insisted. "You have a deadline." She stared him down until he could no longer meet her gaze, and he exhaled in resignation.

"The dishes, I suppose. And the kindling bucket could use refilling." His mouth twitched as he added, "I think it best you keep your distance from the chickens," but she couldn't find it in her to smile. She wordlessly cleared the table so he could open his laptop, and she cleaned up from breakfast to the sound of the keys clacking with abandon.

It was snowing again when she went outside: tiny, barely-there flakes, drifting in lazy seclusion. Tears blurred her vision as she chucked split logs into the metal kindling bucket, and she made an effort not to glance at the nearby fire pit. Those murmured, starlit exchanges; the hesitant squeeze of a gloved hand: it all seemed so long ago, now.

Farther back, the padlocked shed loomed like an ominous metaphor for Erik's reticence. She resented it, and she was drawn to it. After a quick glance back at the cabin—Erik hadn't been facing the window, she was certain—she found herself circling the rust-colored wood, searching for clues, for points of entry, for structural flaws.

And there it was, on the long side facing the forest: a small window, the shape of a mail slot and only slightly bigger. It was curtained off inside—a strange thing, for a shed—but there was a gap between the curtain panels.

The window was high up on the wall, out of reach even when she stood on her toes. It would have been enough of a deterrent, had she been in her right mind, but her head was still a pulsing tangle of emotions. Instead, she dumped out the kindling, overturned the metal bucket, and stepped onto her makeshift stool.

It was too dark to see into the shed, even when she cupped her hands to block out the light. In a flash of brilliance, she activated the flashlight app on her phone and shone the light in through the gap.

She discerned little more than a stack of small boxes, partly obscured, but she could just make out some of their labels. The words sent an icy shock through her veins.

 _Performance ammunition_.  _Cartridges_.  _AR-15_.

Christine knew almost nothing about guns—they terrified her—but the AR-15 had made headlines often enough to earn a reputation, so that even she had heard of it. It was an assault rifle.

There were other kinds of ammunition, too, for guns she didn't know, at least three different models. Multiple types, she reasoned, implied multiple guns.

Her stomach roiled to recall Erik's remark about the deer they'd nearly hit:  _Fortunately for him, I'm not a hunter_. What use did a non-hunter have for that kind of weaponry?

He'd been in the military; maybe it was a relic? But no, the Army didn't send soldiers home with weapons, or with ammunition. She was almost certain that wasn't a thing.

"Find anything of interest?"

Her body jolted at Erik's steely voice. The bucket wobbled beneath her feet, and she threw her hands at the shed to keep from falling. As she stepped down to address him, his gaze seared through her with such breathtaking intensity that she had to look away. "No, I couldn't see anything," she said quickly. Her heart pounded in her ears. "I'm sorry."

The way he stood now, rigid and alert, with hardened jaw and blazing eyes: it reminded her of their first meeting, when he'd seemed enigmatic and predatory. Again she was struck by how little she knew of him, how easily she'd come to trust him. It was an indefatigable fault of hers, that eagerness to trust.

She tensed and waited for the fallout.

"Perhaps it is time you left, Miss Daae." He spoke with such cold callousness that the words struck her right in the chest. Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and stalked back to the house.

It was with a mix of unease and self-loathing that she refilled the kindling bucket and took it into the house. Erik stood in the kitchen, his back to her, undeterred by her entrance. He'd pulled the tiny bear carving from its shelf and now rubbed at the soft wood with his thumb, studying the figure as though it contained the answer he sought. She ducked her head and hurried past.

He was still there once she'd deposited the kindling and gathered her things. Only when she cleared her throat did he seem to notice her, and he absently returned the carving to its shelf.

She could barely find the courage to speak; what emerged was little more than a whisper. "I'm sorry for the imposition," she said, "and I'm very grateful for your hospitality." He swallowed, blinked, and said nothing. "Have a good Thanksgiving, then," she added, and she turned to leave.

"Christine, I—"

She stopped. Erik lifted a hand, slowly, as if to reach for her face—but he faltered, the hand falling to his side. "Drive carefully," he murmured, and he turned away.

She could do nothing then but leave, her heart sinking further into her gut with every step she took.

In the car, Christine tried to console herself with empty assurances: they'd barely known each other, it was for the best, there was something dangerous about him. Traditional breakup platitudes did not even apply, because there had never been anything to break up: no solid matter that could be chipped or torn or cracked—only two separate bodies, orbiting each other, just out of reach. A slight wobble in one axis—his or hers, it didn't matter—and it became a clear miss.

There was no means of reassurance, however, for the way in which she'd betrayed his trust.

She should have returned to work on the cottage, but she didn't, not at first. She went into town and bought a pint of ice cream and a bottle of premixed margarita and then, afraid of what the cashier might think, exchanged the pint for a full gallon, a bag of cheese puffs, and a second margarita bottle, implying a purchase for a crowd. But the lanky teenager at checkout was sullen and lethargic, handing her the receipt without so much as a glance, and she left feeling even more annoyed with herself than she had before.

She got in the car intent on driving back to the motel, where she could at least wallow in front of a TV, until she remembered her mini-fridge didn't have a freezer. Miserable as she was, she couldn't eat a gallon of ice cream in one sitting. With an exasperated sigh, she drove to the cottage.

She ate in utter silence on the kitchen floor, grabbing fistfuls of cheese puffs, eating ice cream straight from the carton. The freshly painted walls mocked her with their sunniness, and she threw a cheese puff at one of them. Only when she began to feel ill did she stop and evaluate her choices.

No. She would not allow herself to fester like this. She rinsed the cheese dust from her hands, and she started prepping the bathroom for painting.

She worked until late in the afternoon, closing in on evening. She was sweating profusely by then, and she slipped out into the cold for relief, her sleeves still rolled to the elbows.

The sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows and burnishing the bare trees a fiery bronze. Diluted blue sky had given way to the soft pastels of an early-winter sunset. Farther upstream was a bend in the river where the water disappeared into the trees, and it was over that same bend that the sun set every night. "Couldn't ask for a better view," her dad had been fond of saying.

She sat at the top of the wooden staircase that led down the steep embankment to the river, and she listened to the soft trickle of water below. The perspiration on her skin cooled quickly and set off goosebumps. She breathed in the crisp air; the scent of sweet pine; the heavy, damp chill off the water; and she let everything numb her insides like a natural menthol.

In the distance, in front of the sun, a dusky silhouette materialized. It was moving at a fast clip, growing in size, and she put a hand to her brow to get a better look.

It was an eagle.

She almost laughed, because of  _course_  it was an eagle. She had no reason to believe it was the same one that had prompted her capsizing, but she addressed it as if it were. "You're supposed to be a harbinger of change!" she called out. A lot had happened after the last eagle, sure—but in the end, nothing was different. Nothing that mattered.

Still, she could not help but watch the creature in utter fascination, until it was nothing but a wavering speck against the dim sky.

Once the eagle had passed, she fished for stones among the brush edging the stairs. Each one she hurled at the water landed with a restrained  _plop_  that echoed across and down the river, as if to illustrate the vast scope of her solitude. Reluctantly, she hoisted herself up and went back inside before the tears could form.

* * *

Christine spent the following day in her motel room, obligations and ice cream be damned. The room, at least, had wi-fi and cable, and an actual place to sit. Midday she ordered a pizza, and she nursed it through lunch and dinner as she took in all manner of contemptible daytime television. How tired she'd already grown of this town and its remoteness, its reasonable business closing hours and lack of Thai food.

Finally, when she grew fed up with her own wallowing, she forced herself to shower and change. She put on a necklace and even a bit of mascara, and she walked to the bar across the street. She felt like a lost child, doomed to wander aimlessly until someone told her how to move on from the massive sticking point in her life.

The bar was exactly what she expected: worn-down wood paneling, neon beer signs, sports memorabilia, a mounted deer's head. Cigarette smoke wafted off the patrons in clouds thick and odious, as though they'd just bathed in it. A drunk man in a trucker hat belted out "Blaze of Glory" at the karaoke mic, while his friends heckled him from five tables away. Christine sat at the bar and ordered a vodka tonic.

The first one went down quickly. There was no one to converse with, no one to distract her; she could only sip and watch the trainwreck that was Tuesday-night karaoke. Sorrow sat like a lead weight in her belly, and when the alcohol did nothing to ease it, she ordered a basket of fries.

With the second drink, however, her skin warmed and her muscles relaxed. She started chatting up the bartender, and then the woman to her left. She shared her fries and put her name on the karaoke list. When the man in the trucker hat returned to the mic, this time for Springsteen, she cocked her head: in truth, he wasn't all bad.

The vodka restored her optimism. She didn't have to be that wandering child; she had a home, she had friends. She pulled out her phone to tell Meg she'd reconsidered: she'd be happy to join the de Chagny clan for Thanksgiving.

She never finished typing the message.

From the barstool beside her came a voice:  _the_  voice, the liquid heat that coursed like a heady elixir through her veins, that made her heart race and then stop altogether.

"It seems we are not quite through with each other yet, Miss Daae."


	10. Scorpion

"It seems we are not quite through with each other yet, Miss Daae."

When had he come in? Even as a forbidden thrill coursed through her, Christine cursed the tunnel vision induced by that second vodka tonic.

Now in public, Erik wore his black ski mask, and it made him even less accessible than the thinner surgical mask had. He also had on his black shell jacket, but with dark jeans and actual shoes instead of tactical pants and combat boots, as if to offset the severity of his upper half.

She ached for the perfect barb or wisecrack to deliver, but nothing took shape in her present brain fuzz. "Were you following me?" she blurted out instead.

Mouth drawn, he shook his head. "I attempted to find you at the motel. With your car parked outside the room, I assumed you could not be far."

Her stomach fluttered. "But you were looking for me?"

"You left your things behind." In response to her blank stare, he added, "Blankets, and an inordinate number of snacks."

The bartender, a rough-hewn man of about fifty, sized up Erik from behind the counter. "You planning to order a drink or rob the place?" he asked, and Erik waved him off.

"I will not be staying long."

"Hey, nothing wrong with a designated driver." The bartender set down a coaster and a glass of ice water. "On the house."

Christine's spirits sank. There was no hope of a reunion, then, nor even an apology. "You could have just left the stuff at my door," she muttered.

"It seemed rude."

"That's hardly deterred you before." She felt awful as soon as she said it, but Erik gave an expressionless nod.

"Touche."

She took a long sip of her drink. With her senses dulled, her emotions numb, certainly he wouldn't be able to wound her again?

Then again, her alcohol consumption had historically elicited, in direct proportion, professions of affection for literally anyone and anything within a five-mile radius. Her next instinct was to offer Erik a cold fry, which might have been devious had she remembered it was cold before offering—but no, she'd only done it out of politeness. He declined, as expected.

"Excuse me," she announced, perhaps too quickly, and she slid off the bar stool on slightly wobbly legs to escape to the bathroom.

Christine gave herself a pep talk in the stall.  _He's an arrogant jerk, and he's not here to make amends. Do not throw yourself at him. Do not so much as_ look  _at his very soft mouth._ She cupped her hand at the sink to gulp water straight from the tap, and she assured herself that the fries were already working to soak up the alcohol.

From a distance, exiting the bathroom, it was easier to see how deeply out of place Erik looked: a reedy stalk of darkness, prickly on the outset but sullenly curling in on himself, face angled down into the bar. Whatever satisfaction she might have felt at his discomfort vanished when she managed to trip over someone's outstretched foot. Mercifully, she did not face-plant, and he did not see.

"So." She slid back onto the bar stool with renewed professionalism. "I assume my things are in your truck. Was the plan to subject yourself to abject torture until I'm ready to leave, or to guilt me into leaving early?"

His jaw tightened. "I presumed I was doing you a favor here."

"You'll forgive me if I don't jump for joy." She could barely stop herself from wincing at her own words. Oh, she didn't like this at all: it wasn't her.

"What is it you want from me, Miss Daae? I gave you a reasonable parting explanation, and you responded in kind by trespassing. I do not believe I owe you anything furth—" He was cut off by a shrill note from the karaoke mic, a screeching attempt at "My Heart Will Go On" so unfortunate he flinched and she snorted in spite of herself. Seconds later, he was still squinting as though in pain.

"You good?" she asked. "I think your left eye just twitched."

"I think my soul just left this earthly plane."

She bit back a smile. "I might've known you weren't a karaoke fan."

"It's an entirely self-serving preoccupation. No one wants to hear other people sing."

"Every recreational activity is self-serving; that's the point."

"You would be hard pressed to find another that so ruthlessly afflicts innocent bystanders." He sipped at his water pointedly.

"Golf?" she replied, and a small choking noise emerged from his throat. He brought a precautionary hand to his lips, and only once he'd coughed several times did he speak again.

"Ah, do tell us how you really feel, Miss Daae."

_Miss Daae_. He said it with something like fondness this time, but it was still an uncomfortable regression from that brief but intimate first-name basis.

Still, his eyes were softer when he veered the conversation back on topic, somber though his expression remained. "I confess," he said, "there is something else I wish to discuss—something unsuited for present company. Perhaps we could talk outside?"

Her first reaction was indignation, but a glance at her cold fries and near-empty drink silenced it. No good could come from another vodka tonic, and she was admittedly curious about what he wanted to discuss. She nodded, flagged down the bartender, and asked for the check.

The numbers on the bill danced in her vision, doubling and coming back together and scattering again. She slid it down the bar to Erik. "Here, you do the tip," she grumbled. "I can't math right now."

He studied the slip of paper. "Fifteen percent?"

"What are you, some kind of Scrooge? He was good. Twenty, at least."

The corner of Erik's mouth quirked back. He took the pen from her hand, dry fingers brushing against hers, and with his left hand scrawled a number in a tall, narrow script reminiscent of his own physique. With a curt thanks, she swiped the receipt to add her signature.

She'd just capped the pen when her name was announced over the mic.

"Oh!" She jumped off her stool so fast she nearly fell. "I'm up next. You coming?"

"Pardon?"

"Karaoke. You're a musician, aren't you?" She jerked her head toward the tiny wooden stage, where the opening lyrics to "Dancing Queen" were queued on the screen for her predecessor. "Surely you can put these amateurs in their place?"

His jaw hardened. "Absolutely not."

"Oh, come on. I haven't heard a single note from you yet." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Time to put your money where your mouth is."

"No," he ground out, more urgently now. "Not now. Not here." His voice had gone watery, and there was a wild desperation to his eyes that gave her pause.

"Okay," she said quickly. "I won't make you. Just...wait for me?" He gave her a reluctant nod, and she went over to pick her song.

She'd planned to sing something upbeat, something nostalgic, to cater to the new friends she'd made in her state of light inebriation. But Erik's unexpected presence lingered like a black cloud over the bar, blocking out any of the sunniness she'd managed to conjure that evening, however artificial.

Then again, even black clouds left new growth in their wake—and this one had revived her voice, had drawn it out from the undergrowth to unfurl and blossom after the storm.

She chose her selection and dipped back into the bathroom to smooth her hair and freshen her lipstick. At the last second, she decided to tug off her now-overbearing sweater and sing in the lacy pink camisole beneath it. The Christine of days prior had scarcely extended beyond that soft, quirky schoolteacher—but the Christine of tonight, propelled by liquid courage, would be a force of nature.

Erik's mouth parted wordlessly when she returned to drop her sweater on the bar stool, and she left him again without a word. "Dancing Queen" was wrapping up, and she didn't want him to know just how much her heart had begun pounding. She was so far from the performing musician she'd always imagined him to be.

That said, she could work a karaoke crowd well enough. She sang "Wrecking Ball" for its sultry opening; for its soaring, dramatic chorus; for the way it suited the texture of her voice. She sang and her anxiety was quick to melt away, leaving her body to thrum in time with the music.

She'd intended to sing to Erik, at least in part—admittedly, to taunt him, and remind him of what he'd cast out: to say, "Look at me: I'm fine and I've moved on." But when she looked at him, she found him tracking her with such an angry intensity that she had to look away. Each time she risked a glance, she was met with long fingers gripping a water glass like pincers, and with that same burning stare, the one that could draw breath from her lungs and music from her soul, as though he both worshipped and resented her: a scorpion, ready to sting and devour.

No one had ever looked at her like that before. It thrilled her, and it almost terrified her.

Christine received the loudest applause of the night, with patrons accosting her left and right as she stepped away from the stage, but none of it mattered. The cut of his gaze bisected the room as she returned to him, and everything else fell away.

By the time she reached his side, he'd already pushed her coat into her fumbling hands. "Let's go," he said gruffly, and he was out the door before she managed to zip up.

They spilled out into the cloudy dark, the cold gravel under their feet crunching and echoing across the quiet parking lot. "Slow down!" she called after Erik. He stopped and rounded on her, his face tight with irritation, and she balked. "Wait, are you  _angry_ with me?"

"Yes," he bit out, "and no." He swung around with his back to her, he ripped off the ski mask and wiped at his forehead with one sleeve. When he put the mask back on, he was careful to position it just so before facing her again. His teeth were gritted. "For the life of me, I cannot understand this"—he clenched his fist—"this  _hold_ you have on me. It is utterly  _maddening_ , the way it persists despite my best efforts: a maddening, impossible, intangible harmony."

"Musica universalis," she whispered, her eyes widening.

"That is not a thing. Not with people. As I said." He sounded less convinced than he had the night before.

"Fine," she said. "Tell me what you want to tell me, and then go on deluding yourself."

He worked his jaw back and forth, as though debating whether to acknowledge the barb. "What did you see in the shed?"

Now it was her turn to look away, to show a sudden interest in the gravel beneath her boots. "What makes you think I saw something?"

"You are a terrible liar."

She bit her lip. "You didn't seem to care at the time."

"I was angry at the time. When I sent you out there, I did not think—" He stopped abruptly, but it was too late.

She eyed him suspiciously. "Did you send me out there as some kind of test?"

He was silent for a moment. "I sought confirmation that I had made the right decision," he conceded quietly. "You gave it, with your indiscretion."

Tears were forming and she couldn't deal with them, not now: angrily, she blinked them away. "You want to know what I saw, then? Fine. Ammunition, all kinds of it. What do you need an assault rifle for, Erik?"

A pair of women exited the bar, and with a gentle but staying hand he led her by the arm, farther away, nearly around the corner of the brick building. The close proximity only served to reinforce his towering height, his wiry strength hidden beneath layers of clothing. She wondered if she should call out to the women.

"Did you tell anyone what you saw?" Erik murmured, and though his voice was anxious, it contained no malice.

She shook her head. "Who would I tell?"

His shoulders lost some of their rigidity. He exhaled; his lips parted and closed again, wordlessly.

"Why do you have so many guns?" she whispered.

"I would prefer not to discuss it."

"If you're not really a translator," she persisted, "just tell me. I won't ask what it is you actually do."

"I am, in fact, a translator." There was a grim pull to his mouth. "It is more a question of what I used to do."

He'd set a bare hand against the brick wall of the bar, and the other twitched anxiously at his side, the corded tendons flexing with every movement. She realized she wasn't wearing gloves, either. When he failed to elaborate further, she carefully took his dangling hand into hers and studied it, fingers roaming over the sharp knuckles, eliciting a sharp breath from his lungs.

When she dug her thumbs into the scant meat of his palm, as if to draw the coiled tension out of him, he emitted a quiet hiss. His knees buckled ever so slightly.

"Christine." Her name emerged a whisper, choked with desperation, as though he wanted her to both stop and never stop.

"These demons you're holding on to," she murmured, "are going to devour you from the inside."

Something like a whimper emerged from his lips, and he jerked his hand from her grip. Even as he edged away, his gaze bore into the spot she'd just touched. "Who  _are_  you?" he whispered.

With a mournful shrug, she replied, "I don't really know anymore."

Once again, she'd grown fed up with his elusiveness. She jammed her hands into her pockets and looked out over the road, beyond which the warmth of the little motel beckoned. "It's cold," she said, "and I'm exhausted. I'm going to my room." In a role-reversed echo of their first meeting, she took off toward the street without waiting to see if he followed.

The gravel crunched behind her, and the streetlamp in the parking lot cast a second, lanky shadow near the base of her own.

Only at her motel room door did she turn to acknowledge him. Her voice was tired; her face had gone slack. "Last chance to tell me," she said, "before I jump to various conclusions."

"Yes. Yes, I know." He swallowed. "I don't suppose you are free for Thanksgiving tomorrow?"

"I...what?" After everything, he could still manage to catch her off guard.

"If you come by tomorrow," he said, "I will take you inside the shed. I expect you will want to leave after, but if, by chance…" He rubbed at the back of his neck, unable to meet her gaze. "Nadir will be arriving for the holiday weekend, and you would be welcome to join us for Thanksgiving dinner."

There was a beat of silence. "No offense," she said, "but that sounds like the perfect setup for murder."

"I have had ample opportunity to do so, were that the end goal."

"Touche." Christine worried at her lip, haunted by every self-defense seminar of her past, yet certain in her bones she had to return to that cabin in the woods. "Okay, I'll come," she said, and for the first time since they'd met, she had the presence of mind to exchange numbers with him.

Once she'd pocketed her phone, she let her hand hover at the door handle to her room. "Did you...want to...?"

He glanced at the door and went tight-lipped. "I shouldn't."

Unsure of whether he was refusing or self-scolding, she scanned her room card and opened the door just slightly, pausing to wait for his reaction. His eyes darted into the room and back out again, and he inhaled sharply. "I will take my leave, then. Goodnight, Miss Daae." She could only watch as his brisk, long-legged strides carried him back across the road.

It would be foolish to walk into the scorpion's den the next day and not expect to be stung. She knew that. But somehow, the alternative—to spend her first major holiday alone—seemed like the even bigger trap. She went to bed uneasy, and she succumbed to a night of restless sleep.


	11. Turkey

What did one wear to a social call that would end in either fallout or Thanksgiving dinner?

It wasn't as though Christine had much to choose from, of course. She hadn't packed for that sort of thing. She compensated with a generous application of hair product to tame her usual mess of waves, and with eyeliner and eyeshadow and every other cosmetic product she was too lazy to use on a regular basis.

She paired her best jeans with a cable-knit sweater in a deep, dusky pink, and instead of her work boots she wore her good pair, the ones with sleek brown leather that rose to mid-calf. The final touches were a cute plaid scarf and a generous polish of her glasses.

She looked decent, she decided. But her stomach churned so dramatically she briefly thought she might be sick, and it was only in part due to her mild hangover.

It was snowing as she left the motel, but with genuine flakes this time: huge, fluffy ones that fell wet and heavy, sticking to every surface.

Three to four inches of snowfall had been forecast: not much for these parts, but enough that she filled her gas tank and charged her phone, just in case. She threw the phone charger, a change of clothes, and a few necessities into an overnight bag that she stowed in her trunk, also as a precaution.

The roads were already coated in white when she set out for Erik's. It was only half an inch, but slick. Vehicle traffic cleared enough of the two-lane highway that cut through town, but the first side road required a white-knuckled focus that lasted the rest of the trip. The closer she got to the cabin, the more she regretted the arrangement. She would have to drive back in even worse conditions.

The setting was idyllic, though: the little white-capped cabin, puffing out smoke, nestled among the snowy pines. She admired it for a moment before exiting the car with a newly purchased bottle of pinot noir. She'd have preferred to leave the wine there, unsure as she was of her length of stay, but with her luck, the bottle would freeze and explode all over the upholstery.

The porch had been tidied, with no trace of the work table or bloodied filleting knife. Still, her hand trembled as she raised it to knock. The door creaked open to reveal her towering host, and she was treated to the mouthwatering smell of roasting turkey.

There was a pregnant pause in which they both blinked at each other: she, no longer the disheveled river rat he'd perhaps grown accustomed to; he, in crisp slacks and navy sweater, with a button-up shirt poking out at the collar. He wore the stretchy black surgical mask, but he appeared to have cut out its crown, so that now she could see the dark locks she'd glimpsed so sparingly before.

A pair of eager paws planted themselves on her stomach with such force, she nearly stumbled backward.

"Caesar!" they both admonished, though Christine was laughing. The dog returned all paws to the floor and sat obediently, his tail thrashing in excitement. Christine presented Erik with the wine—which only seemed to deepen his discomfited surprise—and placated Caesar with affection.

"I would venture to say he has missed you," Erik said.

She glanced up at him and smiled. An unspoken question— _Just him?_ —lingered in the space between them, but he looked away.

"It smells amazing in here," she said, by way of a subject change. "When does Nadir arrive?"

"Within the hour, in theory. I suspect the weather will slow him down."

Another heavy pause. She set her purse by the door. "Should I take off my coat, or…?"

He shook his head. "You came here to see the shed. No sense in delaying the inevitable." He pulled on his own boots and coat, and she followed him out the back door.

The crunch of their footfalls echoed across the yard and into the pines. Off to one side, the chickens poked around their coop; to the other was the fire pit, newly blanketed in snow. By the time they neared the shed by the treeline, it felt as though they were traveling back in time, about to unravel all the progress they had made.

Christine's heart beat faster as Erik unbolted the padlock, and some base part of her wanted to reach for his hand: a ridiculous notion, that she should turn to him for reassurance against the darkest parts of himself.

The door creaked open an inch.

He stayed his hand and glanced at her sidelong. "You should know," he said quietly, "that when I was overseas, I not only saw things I shouldn't have seen, but did things I shouldn't have been able to do. Not necessarily acts of violence, but miscarriages of law. Places I shouldn't have had access to. Propaganda I should not have been able to enact."

She hesitated. "I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at."

"All that is to say, the world of law and order means nothing when those in power can still act with impunity." With that, he opened the door fully.

At first, she didn't understand what she was meant to focus on. The shed's contents were organized but numerous: gas cans and unmarked five-gallon buckets. Dog food and chicken feed. Distilled water, canned and dry goods. Tools and camping gear and first-aid supplies. Batteries, flashlights, candles. Slightly odder selections, for a shed: soap and toothpaste, blankets, a HAM radio. Bottles of prescription pills. Then the gun cabinet she'd feared, and the corresponding ammo boxes.

She looked to Erik, who was eying her warily. "I don't get it," she said. "Are you a prepper or something?"

"A what?"

"You know, those people who are convinced of imminent societal collapse. Like, emergency preparedness to the extreme."

He hesitated. "I suspect my circumstances are different, but I do not consider that unreasonable."

"Neither do I, really, especially when you're this isolated." Christine scanned the shed again, searching for anything she'd missed. She felt relieved, yet oddly disappointed. "But why the guns, Erik?"

His gaze flicked in the direction of the house, then the yard, and he stepped back from the threshold. "Let's walk," he said.

Confused, she could only follow along as he closed and locked the shed. His hands were bare, and as he took off toward the woods, he shoved them into his pockets against the brisk air.

There was no marked trail that she could see among the gathering snow, but the continued absence of brush at her feet suggested a well-worn path, possibly the one they'd taken from the river after he'd rescued her from hypothermia and, in hindsight, a rather unthreatening bear.

He kept his gaze trained carefully elsewhere as they walked. "I suppose what I would have you know," he said, "is that the government can legally surveil ex-military."

"Like...without a warrant?"

"Yes. There's an executive order with some rather vague wording, and documentation has surfaced to suggest the Defense Department is taking full advantage. Their main focus is on what they call 'homegrown violent extremists.'"

"So not you, then?"

There was a pregnant pause. "One fear is of veterans with mental illness becoming national security risks." Another hesitation, and his voice went lower, softer. "Vets with post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular."

She swallowed. "But that's common enough, right? They wouldn't have a reason to target you specifically?"

A pinecone skittered away from her instep. Moments later, Erik stepped on a twig, its sharp snap punctuating the squeaky crunch of wet powder under their boots. The falling snow muffled every sound, as though the pair of them had been curtained off from the rest of the world.

"I confess, I did not have the strongest moral compass when I enlisted," he said, "but even then, the propaganda began to eat away at me, as did the lengths we went to in order to carry it out." He stretched out a hand, absently shaking loose the snow from a low pine bough as they passed. "Nadir and I bonded over similar sentiments. But unlike him, I started to question; I got mouthy. I was disciplined for it."

"Oh, Erik," she said, almost pleadingly.

"The bombing incident followed soon after, and I lost comrades. I lost my job. I lost"—his voice broke—"I lost half my face." He let out a bitter laugh. "I would be a therapist's nightmare. Or playground, depending on how you look at it."

Christine couldn't help herself: she wound her arm through his, as though it might absorb some of his anguish. His footfall slowed just slightly.

"I was questioned by the FBI in the months following," he continued. "They can even access VA medical records. As soon as I put an end to those damnable reconstructive surgeries, I left. I have been looking over one shoulder ever since."

"It's been nine years," she said quietly. "They must have moved on by this point."

"No one forgets me, Christine," he snapped. "Not with this face."

The treeline broke, and they found themselves at the river, near the spot where she'd first come ashore with her canoe. The water, now a knifelike slate gray, bisected the snowy riverbed like liquid mercury, and they stopped to watch it in silence.

Finally, she turned to him. "I'm still not convinced," she said, "but let's say they do somehow monitor you. Is it really so bad, in the grand scheme of things?"

"If there ever  _were_  some sort of societal collapse, or martial law..." He held up a hand to ward off the skepticism that had flashed across her face. "With the world in its present state, I do not consider it out of the bounds of reason. And they would come for ex-military before almost anyone else." He peered down, raking the toe of his combat boot through a tuft of snow. "I would not subject another person to that, Christine. Especially not someone"—here his voice went hoarse, and he paused—"someone I cared about."

There was a gentle fluttering in her chest, even as her stomach sank. "But the guns, Erik? Really?"

"Flight would be my first choice in such an event, but I've prepared for all situations. You don't understand what they're capable of."

"I'm not sure I understand what  _you_  are capable of at this point."

Still staring down at his feet, he nodded. "Nor I. Let us hope we never find out."

He was a sharp contrast against the whitening landscape, a grim and serrated monolith in raven-black. Yet the snowflakes were softening him, salting his hair and jacket in a steady accumulation. Perhaps the sight should have softened her, too, but it only served to emphasize a massive waste of potential.

"You're one of the most qualified people to act in a crisis," she considered aloud, "but you'd jump ship? Just like that?"

"Absolutely."

"It seems kind of...selfish."

He shrugged. "So I'm selfish. At least I do not pretend otherwise."

She snapped her head toward him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Recent developments aside, you started coming here only because you could not stand to be alone."

She gaped, snapped her mouth shut, and then gaped at him again. She desperately wanted to lash out, but she couldn't quite find the words. Meanwhile, his accusation circled her mind, growing and throbbing more with each rotation.

He must have read in her icy stare, in her general dumbfoundedness, some request for explanation. "Your roommate moved out, and you left home," he said. "You have a riverside cottage at your disposal, but you spend the bulk of your time not in it. And somehow, despite having summers off, you are compelled to sell the place in the off season." He'd somehow closed the distance between them, even as her eyes began to burn with tears, and now he peered down at her with a sort of smug provocation. "Why, Christine, is it so impossible for you to be alone?"

"Because!" she cried indignantly—whether at him or herself, she couldn't have said. "Because if I'm alone too long, if I'm idle too long, then"—she found herself choking on the words—"then I'll have to come to terms with what a horrible daughter I was."

His jaw slackened, and he was quiet.

And she, who had so willingly thrust him into the spotlight—she couldn't bear to be in it herself. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and she slipped back into the forest at a fast clip.

Tears muddled her vision, swirling the snow and ground into a white haze, and it wasn't long before she lost all sense of direction. She knew she should turn around, go back to him—but her legs gave out, and she squatted at the base of a tall pine, elbows on knees and face in her hands, and she choked back her sobs until the threat subsided.

"Christine." The dulcet voice came from up above, and she peeked through her fingers at the pair of black boots nearby. "Christine," Erik repeated, softer now. "I apologize. I should not have…" He sighed. "I was deflecting."

"I know," she said, sniffling. "But you weren't wrong."

He lowered a hand: gloved, now, with the familiar black leather. She let him pull her to her feet, and they headed back toward the cabin.

Somehow, the continuous curtain of snow made the surrounding space feel safe. "I always had some reason or another not to visit him," she said. "Work. Recertification. Travel plans. I wanted to spend my single years seeing new things, and not...well…"

"Seeing familiar faces."

She nodded. "He didn't tell me when he got sick, not right away. And then he went downhill so fast, I didn't—I couldn't—" She bit her lip, swallowing another sob that had bubbled up in her throat. "The viewing at the funeral home this summer was the first time I'd seen him since Christmas." Her voice dropped down to a near whisper. "It didn't even look like him."

"I'm sorry," he replied.

She wished briefly for words of comfort, for reassurances of her innocence, but those could not come from him. Perhaps they couldn't come from anyone, and that was something she'd have to face, head-on, going forward.

The temptation to wallow was overwhelming, but she forced herself to apologize instead. "I shouldn't have called you selfish," she said. "I just have this strong feeling that if you spend your life so angry, and so avoidant, you'll regret it. But it wasn't my place to say so, and I'm sorry."

They came upon the shed now, and Erik stopped to face her, brushing the snow from her hair. Those eyes that had burned so fiercely just minutes before were now soft and deep. "I am trying to be less angry," he said. "I am  _tired_  of being angry. But living with this"—he gestured to his face—"is bad enough."

"You seemed to indicate it wasn't that bad, not when we spoke about it before."

"It's hardly the reason for my current lifestyle, but I cannot say it's incompatible." He withdrew his hand from her scalp, and she mourned the loss of his touch. "No one can look me in the eyes," he growled. "Everyone is so focused on not staring that no one actually  _sees_. No one besides Nadir, anyway."

"And me." She skewered him with a glance.

A sigh. "And you."

"And if I told you to stop pushing me away, consequences be damned, would you actually listen?"

"No."

"Then I think you're being a stubborn idiot."

Erik cocked his head. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, you're being an idiot."

He took a step toward her, head angling inward. "You come into my house," he said, his voice a quiet threat, "and insult me?"

He was so close now. A snowflake caught in her lashes, and she blinked it away without once breaking eye contact. "Yes," she whispered. "What are you going to do about it?"

His eyebrows vaulted beneath the mask. He glanced to one side, and she followed his gaze to where his hand now scooped a calculated handful of snow from the edge of the shed's roof.

She gaped. "You wouldn't."

He worked his jaw back and forth, and then he rotated his wrist, letting the snow fall from his open palm. "No," he replied. "I don't suppose I would."

She gave him a tiny smile. "I would, though." Before he could stop her, she'd already swiped a handful of her own and smashed it over his head.

Time froze. Erik blinked impassively as the snow slicked his hair and dripped down onto the mask with a languid slide of wet, crystalline clumps. "It is a dangerous game you play, Miss Daae," he intoned. He reached for the roof edge again, this time with both hands, and she squeaked and ran.

She should've known better than to wage war with a trained soldier. She'd almost made it to the back door of the cottage when an arm hooked around her waist, pulling her against the hard line of his torso, and she was subjected to the gasp-inducing cold of a snowball flattened against her scalp. She shrieked with laughter and bucked against him, but he did not release his hold.

Desperate to escape another ambush, she clawed at the snow that had fallen on the wood pile in their absence, and she threw it backward into his face. He finally let go, and she whirled on him.

She couldn't help but grin at the sight of him wiping snow from his eyes and nose. Some of it had hit his mouth, too, where it melted against warm skin and traversed the soft padding of his upper lip. He caught it with the tip of his tongue, and her grin faded.

"So," he said, "it seems we are at an impasse."

"Your mask is wet," she replied quietly: a challenge.

He stared at her, his mouth drawn and shoulders rigid. Slowly, with exaggerated intention, he reached for the hem of the mask and tugged it over his head. The gnarled beauty of his face emerged, his eyes flinty against pale skin. "Is this what you wanted to see?"

Her own eyes had widened, but she kept them trained on his. "Yes," she whispered. With only dim awareness, she found herself peeling off a glove to press the pad of her thumb to his lips, mapping their dryness, their partial malformity.

He sighed against her finger, gracing it with the barest brush of a kiss. "You know this cannot continue," he murmured. "I will never leave, except to somewhere more remote. And you have a life elsewhere, with gaggles of small children whom I imagine are enamored with you."

The thought lanced her stomach: she did miss the kids, and terribly. "I know," she conceded. With her free hand she caught one of his and brought it to her own mouth, pressing lips to knuckles, never breaking eye contact.

It was he who winced and closed his eyes. He withdrew his hand and touched his forehead to hers, his breath heavy on her face. "I ought to check on the turkey. You will stay for dinner?"

Christine nodded. She would stay even longer, if he'd let her, but to what end?

Even as he disappeared into the house, she stayed behind, snow-covered and shivering, to look out over the trees. Her mind invoked Robert Frost, and somehow, despite everything, she felt a momentary peace.

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
_But I have promises to keep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep,  
_ _And miles to go before I sleep._

* * *

_Special thanks to Tumblr user smokeyloki for planting the Robert Frost idea in my brain. I hope this makes up for the lack of pizza rolls in the shed._


	12. Warbler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is now officially caught up to what I've already published on FFN. There's one more chapter after this. Thanks to anyone who has stuck around this far. :)

Erik was toweling the melted snow from his hair when Christine joined him inside. He'd set out a clean towel for her, too, and she used it as best she could, cringing at the frizz that was no doubt springing up from her scalp.

His mask was back in place. "No need to keep that around on my account," she said lightly, gesturing toward it.

"It's a holiday." He paired her damp towel with his and tossed them into a small linen hamper. "I'd prefer not to spoil everyone's appetite."

She frowned. "You're too self-deprecating for your own good."

He ignored her, instead ransacking the kitchen for produce and cutting boards and other implements.

"What can I do to help?" she offered.

"Absolutely nothing. You are a guest."

"A guest who would not appreciate being left to her own devices while you slave away in here."

He hesitated. "I suppose you could wash the potatoes, then."

It was within close quarters that she scrubbed the vegetables alongside Erik, who set to dicing celery and onion at the narrow counter beside the sink. She tried not to think of his nearness, or the crisp campfire scent wafting off his clothes, or the almost-kiss in the snow. In her distractedness, she set a potato too close to the edge, and it rolled right off. Two different arms shot out to catch it.

Time slowed as her gaze moved from the potato resting in her palm to where Erik's broad hand cupped the underside of hers. His fingers were cool and dry, ghosting against her skin as they released her. "Apologies," he said, but the snail's pace at which he withdrew suggested little regret.

They continued in silence. One by one, Christine covered the drying towel with freshly scrubbed potatoes, until there was no room for the handful that remained. She knew he kept the clean towels in the drawer at his opposite hip; the reasonable thing to do would be to ask him for one.

Instead, she reached around him to open the drawer, arm brushing across his back as she did so. "Excuse me," she said, her other hand gently steadying his hip. He froze until she had extracted both a towel and her arm, huffing air through his nose when she spread out the towel as though nothing had happened.

Another minute lapsed before he set down his knife and moved behind her. Her pulse hastened, and she became hyper-aware of every detail: his breath on her neck, his nose grazing her hair, his fingers splayed against her hip. "Forgive me," he murmured into the shell of her ear, and he reached out to pluck a whisk from the utensil crock.

She side-eyed the dry ingredients he'd been dicing. "You're planning to whisk?" she asked dubiously.

"Mm. Eventually."

The hand with the whisk dropped to his side. The hand at her hip remained. "Erik," she whispered, something of a plea—but what she was asking for, she couldn't have said.

"How long were you planning to stand there?" he asked, the words taking on a sharp edge.

An unfamiliar voice cut across the room. "Forgive me, but you seemed particularly immersed in your...cooking."

Christine started, separating herself from Erik to take in the new arrival: a dark-skinned man, shorter and broader than her present companion. He looked much the same as he had in the Army photo she'd found, but with deeper laugh lines and a five o'clock shadow. Hints of gray edged his temple.

"It seemed rude to interrupt," he said, smiling warmly. He had a duffel bag that he shifted from one hand to the other in order to brush the snow from his shoulders. "I know it's too much to ask that you move closer to an airport," he said to Erik. "Maybe I'll start keeping my visits to summers only."

"Is the snow too much for your delicate constitution, Khan?"

"Nah. It's too much for that sorry excuse for a rental car." He turned his focus to her and extended a hand. "Nadir Kahn."

"Christine Daae." She dried her hands and accepted his greeting.

"A pleasure, Christine. Your reputation precedes you."

"It does?" She looked to Erik. "You've talked about me?"

"He doesn't need to," said Nadir. "The fact that you were invited at all speaks volumes." He glanced at their host, eyes twinkling. "Am I correct?"

"I think not," said Erik. "After all, you, too, were invited." With a pointed glance, he snatched up the duffel bag and moved it into the bedroom. Nadir winked at her.

She couldn't help herself. "So what did he say about me?"

"That you're a friend in need of familial comforts, and a gifted musician." She must have failed to conceal her disappointment, because he was quick to add, "What he  _didn't_  say was written all over his face just now."

"Should you decide to stop embarrassing yourself," called Erik from the bedroom, "there are drinks on the table."

He and Christine finished their respective tasks while Nadir uncorked and poured the wine, and the three of them moved to the living room to sit: their new guest in the armchair, and she and Erik on the sofa, a respectable distance apart. Caesar wandered hopefully from person to person until, devoid of belly scratches, he curled up on the rug to observe instead.

Conversation flowed easily with Nadir around. He plied Christine with easy, open-ended questions about her life; he discussed translation work with Erik; he even shared a picture of his new girlfriend, a woman named Rookheeya whose broad smile and nose—combined with a curtain of thick, dark hair—were nothing short of striking.

"She's beautiful," Christine remarked. "What does she do?"

"Immigration law. She's quite the activist." There was a proud glimmer in his eyes and an almost furtive smile as he tucked his phone into his pocket.

Erik's jaw clenched. "You'll draw unwanted attention that way."

"Only by proxy," Nadir replied, "and it's worth it."

A palpable silence followed. Erik took a sip of his wine and looked away.

Christine cleared her throat. "So what was Erik like in the Army?"

Nadir squinted as though sizing him up. "About the same," he determined. "Only slightly less cynical." He didn't say what they were undoubtedly all thinking:  _and significantly more facial structure_. "Our mutual friend has always been a prickly wallflower."

"A bold accusation from the perpetual thorn in my side," said Erik, but without malice.

Despite their mutual deprecation, the men interacted with an easy familiarity that suggested a rich collective history: two distinct threads that had intertwined, by circumstance, to forge something stronger.

At some point Erik left to attend to the meal. Christine made small talk with Nadir until he got up, binoculars in hand, to watch a pair of cardinals at a feeder in the distance.

"I got him these as a housewarming gift," he said as he peered through the lenses. "The field guide, too. But I suspect he's not nearly as enthusiastic about birding as I am."

She joined him at the window, eager to supply what meager local knowledge she had. "Do you know about Kirtland's warbler, then?"

"Please, enlighten me."

"It's a rare songbird, endemic to this area. It almost went extinct, actually, because its breeding habitat is so weirdly specific."

He lowered the binoculars to face her with renewed interest. "And what is that?"

"Large areas of young jack pines. The birds nest at the base of the tree, but once the tree reaches a certain height, they want nothing to do with it, and they leave."

"Hm. Fickle."

"It gets weirder, though." She told him what she had learned from her father: that the cones of jack pines required intense heat to open and release seeds, meaning the birds' habitat was almost entirely dependent on forest fires.

"Life from death," Nadir said. "How poignant."

"I guess, but they nearly got themselves wiped out. They've survived only because of conservation efforts—controlled burns and all that."

"Humans can be reborn from fire and destruction, too, but we don't expect them to go at it alone."

She cast him a dubious glance. "You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped."

"All the same," he said, "sometimes the catalyst is knowing there's someone else rooting for your recovery." He sipped at his wine, and pointedly so.

His words hit deep in the pit of her stomach. But Erik knew, didn't he? He had to know.

"So where do you call home, Christine?"

She took a long swig from her own wine as she blinked out into the snow, tracking the pair of cardinals once they took flight. "I don't know," she said. "I'm not really sure I have one."

* * *

Christine was fiddling around on the piano when Erik called them to dinner.

"I hope you haven't gone to too much trouble," she said as she headed for the kitchen.

"I've kept it simple."

"You said that last year," replied Nadir, bringing up the rear, "and we ate leftovers for three days."

The "simple" affair, laid out on the little two-top table, consisted of a crisply roasted turkey, dry-brined and fragrant with rosemary, lemon, and sage; a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes; stuffing baked with sausage and apples; brussels sprouts roasted with garlic and shallots; a red-wine cranberry sauce; and Erik's homemade bread, still soft and warm from the oven. A spiced pumpkin pie cooled on one counter.

"Well," said Nadir, eyes roving over the small feast, "I suppose this will suffice."

They ate in the living room. While his guests filled their plates, Erik replenished drinks, lit candles, and stoked the fire. He set Beck's  _Sea Change_  spinning on the turntable. He fed Caesar a generous portion of turkey, and a spoonful each of stuffing and potatoes.

By the time he sat down, the others were well into the meal. Christine stopped shoveling food into her mouth long enough to shower him with praise, and Nadir grunted his approval through a mouthful of turkey. Erik, in true form, stabbed at a brussels sprout as though he hadn't heard. Beck's voice from the turntable rose above the increasing quiet.

"I still remember you singing this track on base," said Nadir. "With that same instrument, I believe?" He pointed to the acoustic guitar.

Erik nodded. "Indeed."

Christine, who had paused mid-bite, set down her fork. She'd forgotten all about the possibility of his singing, even though he'd alluded to it during karaoke the night before. "You really do sing?" she asked, her cheeks heating the moment she spoke. He'd critiqued her own vocal abilities, and his voice lit a perpetual fire within her: of  _course_  he sang.

"Open mic nights used to be the only way to get him to a bar," said Nadir. "What do you say, old friend? Private concert after dessert?"

She looked to Erik entreatingly. "That would be wonderful."

He chewed quietly, unable to meet her gaze. "If that is what you wish."

And so that evening, amid plates littered with crumbs and melting whipped cream, he perched on the piano bench with his guitar.

He held it with an easy tenderness, strumming notes more resoundingly intimate than the ones they'd just heard on vinyl. The sound emphasized the stillness of the room, the soft and steady fall of snow at the window, the warm headiness of the wine coursing through her. The logs in the fireplace crackled. Nadir shifted cozily in his seat, and Caesar exhaled deeply from his bed, weathering a post-turkey coma. Among it all, Erik's evasive presence filled the room, both everything and nothing all at once.

The thought of having to leave it all made Christine ache. And when she compared her peopled surroundings to the half-unpacked apartment awaiting her downstate, her stomach actually lurched, and a knot formed in her throat.

Then he sang, and everything she'd been thinking—everything she'd ever thought, or felt—all of it fell to the wayside, and there was only his voice.

It was soft but strong, punctuated every so often by the slightest crackle. The notes curled into the air like languid tendrils of smoke, filling her lungs until she felt dizzy. What might his voice sound like with hers layered over it? What would it  _feel_  like? Its soothing intoxication was almost at odds with the song itself, a breakup ballad fueled by weary resignation.

_No one left to watch your back now_  
_No one standing at your door  
_ _That's what you thought love was for_

_Baby you're lost_  
_Baby you're lost  
_ _Baby you're a lost cause_

The lyrics transported her back to their conversation in the woods, just hours before, and tears pricked her eyes. Was she a lost cause? She hadn't managed to live on her own a full week before coming here. Six months since her dad's passing, and she hadn't managed to confront her grief.

She didn't want to be that person anymore.

_I'm tired of fighting  
_ _Fighting for a lost cause_

The song ended all too soon, its final chord reverberating through the little cabin. She struggled to find words; Nadir gave a languid, satisfied nod.

"Forgive me," said Erik, returning the guitar to its stand. "It's been ages since I sang for an audience."

"Why did you stop?" Her voice sounded tiny and she winced, inwardly, at her intrusiveness.

"There are some things," he said, pointing to his face, "that will always draw attention from one's voice. No matter how skilled it is."

"Oh." She looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry."

Nadir cleared his throat and stood. "I'll get started on the dishes, then."

"I'll help," she offered quickly.

In the kitchen, they paired themselves off into a washing-drying team while Erik slipped outside, muttering something about chickens.

"So he was like this even way back when?" Christine asked, as quietly as possible over the running water.

"Outwardly, yes." There was a slight hitch to Nadir's voice, a careful hesitation.

"Meaning?"

"I suspect more of his frustration is aimed at himself these days. Back then, it was mostly other people he couldn't seem to tolerate."

"Did he...date?"

He nodded. "Here and there, but nothing that lasted long. He was incredibly picky." The corner of his mouth quirked back. "He still is."

Her insides warmed. She couldn't help it.

Erik burst through the back door, arms laden with firewood, and kicked off his boots. "It's still snowing," he said, without actually addressing them. "I would advise you to stay the night." He stalked out into the living room before she had a chance to respond, and there was a distant sound of logs shifting against the fireplace grate.

She emitted a quiet sigh, returning to the stack of plates she had yet to dry. "So how long are you staying, Nadir?"

"Through the weekend." He turned off the faucet to help her shelve the finished dishes. "And you? When do you go back downstate?"

"Tomorrow." The answer left her mouth before she had time to catch and examine it, but she knew, instantly, why she'd said it. Why it was right.

The room went eerily quiet. She turned to find Erik staring at her from the doorway, lips gently parted.

"It's a ridiculous time of year to try and sell up here," she said. "I think I knew that, going in, but..." She trailed off, swallowed. "Anyway, I have a new apartment to get in order, and loose ends to tie up." Grieving to do; therapists to see.

"Seems like a wise decision, then," Nadir assured her, side-eying Erik. He closed the silverware drawer and excused himself to the bathroom. Erik stepped aside to let him pass, but otherwise he remained motionless.

Christine set down her towel. "It doesn't have to be permanent, you know," she said quietly.

"Pardon?"

"My leaving. It's what I need to do for the time being, but I—" She hesitated. "I can always come back."

"I think we've established that separation would be for the best, Christine."

"Right. It's just..." She bit her lip, averting her gaze. "You don't actually think you're a lost cause, do you?"

"What does it matter?" It was more quiet resignation than it was a question.

"It matters because you're not." She forced herself to look at him. "And yeah, I know, I'm not one to talk. I'm a mess. But I'm going to go home and work on it, and see a therapist, and...and maybe you could, too."

"Ah." His jaw hardened in the way she had come to loathe. "And then we will both be cured and live happily ever after, is that it?"

Her face heated. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

Creaking floorboards signaled Nadir's return, and she spun to put away the remaining dishes, concealing her watering eyes from the both of them. Behind her, another wine cork popped, liquid sloshing freely into a glass.

"Drinking more than usual, Erik?" Nadir asked from the doorway.

His reply was sharp. "It is a holiday, is it not?" There was a careless  _clink_  of glasses. "Cheers."

A shadow fell over the evening conversation, one that not even Nadir's sunny disposition could chase away, not with Erik brooding into his wine glass and offering up only one-word responses. But as the night wore on, and the wine diminished, she noticed his eyes tracking her more, taking on that same burning intensity as when she'd sung the night before.

It was settled, against her protests, that she would take the bed. Erik would take the couch—after a careful repositioning of the table lamp, she hoped—and Nadir would sleep in the loft she hadn't known existed: the upper space beyond the adjoining kitchen and living room walls, where the rafters peaked. She was singly amazed when Erik reached up to the wall's top edge and produced a fold-out ladder.

Nadir was in the bathroom when she bid Erik goodnight. "I was just remembering," she said, "what you said about my voice, that night we almost hit a deer." She forced a small smile. "And since it seems unlikely we'll meet again, I feel like I should tell you...your voice is extraordinary."

His expression was unreadable, but it was as though his chest deflated. He muttered a quiet thank-you.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, the mask cool and unnatural against her lips. "Goodnight."

In the bedroom, she tugged on her pajamas. The men struck up a murmured conversation in the living room, Nadir's tone taking on a peculiar insistence that caught her interest, but it was too quiet for her to hear. She turned off the light and climbed into bed, unable to sleep as long as that dulcet voice carried on outside.

Eventually the light filtering under the door went dark, and the cabin went silent. She tugged the covers up to her chin and settled in to sleep.

* * *

The creak of the bedroom door awoke her.

Through bleary eyes she watched a figure enter, the sinewy length of him a towering shadow against the now-closing door.

She sat up and put on her glasses. Outside, the snowy landscape reflected light so brightly it filtered in through the curtains, enough to illuminate his drawn mouth, his stiffness of jaw. In the still of the night, his breath was audible.

"Erik?"

When he didn't respond, she slid out of bed. Only then did he move, a hesitant few steps to meet her halfway. His head was tilted in that singly focused way of his, the way that set her chest fluttering.

"Why are you here?" she whispered. "You said—"

"I know what I said."

He was swift to draw her in, arm circling her waist, lips settling on hers with soft but fiery intention. Even as she kissed him back, her sleep-addled brain tried to process what was happening. A change of heart? Her spirits briefly lifted at the thought.

But no. There was a quiet desperation to his movements that shouldn't have been there, not if he'd changed his mind.

It was with great reluctance that she broke off the kiss. "How much wine did you have?" she asked suspiciously.

He was undeterred; his hands roamed her back and sides, and his lips found her neck, eliciting a small gasp. "Just enough," he murmured against her skin.

"Enough to seduce me?" she teased. Her breath hitched as his fingers skirted her waistband, but in the wake of her words, he stopped, his face hovering before hers.

"Enough," he said, "to provide the veneration you deserve." He swallowed. "If only for one night."

She blinked up at him, stunned. "O—oh."

With the pad of his thumb, he traced the contours of her face—brow ridge, nose, cheekbones, jaw—as though mapping how he would carve them from boxwood. "You are incomparable, Christine Daae," he said. He paused with his palm warm on her cheek, his long fingers winding into her hair, as though awaiting permission.

 _Ask me to stay_ , she wanted to tell him, but he had clearly, steadfastly, made up his mind: even the wine could not undo it. The saddest part was that she understood.

"Kiss me, then," she whispered instead.

Their mouths met again, frantic and sweeping and open. Hands roved and clenched at fabric.

She couldn't have said who first edged them toward the bed: it was a slow and synchronized movement, one for which they refused to separate until they reached the edge of the mattress. Her lips were tingling when he pulled away.

"May I?" He removed her glasses and set them aside. He flinched when she reached for his own face, but by some miracle he waited, stiffly, as she peeled off the mask. It joined her glasses on the nightstand.

His facial features were just visible when he lay down beside her. She stared at him, silent, twining her fingers through his.

"I can hardly understand how you bear it," he said soberly.

"Shut up," she replied, "and let someone love you."

A sob caught in his throat as she kissed him, but she drank it down and pulled him closer. Here, and now, she would make sure they sang together.

* * *

_One last chapter to go..._


	13. Menagerie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually started posting this little story in September 2018 on FFN. I can't believe it took me just shy of a year to complete, but here we are. Thanks to everyone who stuck it out while I worked through numerous personal setbacks, and thank you so, so much for your encouragement and comments on this tiny homage to a place dear to my heart.

He was still there when she awoke.

His back was to her, covers fallen away to expose the upper half: hills and valleys of sharp bone and lean muscle, bathed in the dappled light of an early-winter morning. Christine breathed in the piney smell of the sheets, taking it all in, unsure how to proceed.

A scar ran from Erik's missing ear down the length of his neck, so pale and silvery she'd scarcely noticed it before. Unbidden, her fingers stretched out to graze the puckered skin.

A broad hand was quick to cover hers, trapping it against his neck. The exposed skin there was cool, and his palm warm, and somehow the combination of the two made her shiver.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "Does it bother you?"

He exhaled through his nose. "I'm not sure."

"Do you want me to do it again?"

There was a pause, and an almost imperceptible nod. He released her hand.

With a single fingertip, she traced the leathery corrugation where it snaked down his neck. He shuddered beneath her touch, and he rolled over.

The mask was still off. His eyes searched hers with measured apprehension.

She put a palm to his cheek, and she held it there even when he flinched. "I half expected you to leave," she confessed.

"Ah, but that would imply some measure of regret."

Warmth unfurled in her chest. "You don't, then?" she asked.

He shook his head. "And you?"

"No. Of course not."

With the tender sluggishness of early morning, he leaned in and kissed her. She relaxed into his mouth, and when a lanky arm draped over her waist, pulling her in, that eagerness gave way to quiet desperation. She wound herself around him, their bare skin warming at contact.

Erik groaned into her mouth. "Christine," he murmured, and she pulled back just enough to let him speak. "I'm afraid our only safeguard was what I purloined from Nadir's wallet last night."

Begrudgingly, she untangled herself from him to avoid further temptation. "So you  _are_  a degenerate," she teased. It was a halfhearted attempt to mask her disappointment.

His fingers twined through her hair. "You make me reckless."

Her face did fall then, her voice losing confidence. "I'm sorry for being such a disruption."

He stared at her for a long moment. "I confess," he said, "I was livid at the initial interruption. This"—he gestured to his unmasked face—"was fully intentional." He raked the callused pads of his fingers along her scalp. "I had not expected a hapless river rat."

Christine gaped in mock offense. " _Hapless_?"

"You nearly lost consciousness in the bathroom, and you fully succumbed on my sofa."

"You were hardly sympathetic."

"You insisted on exacerbating an injured ankle. Against my advisement, I might add."

She gave his chest a small push. " _You_  made me think Nadir was  _dead_."

"You endangered my chickens," he murmured. He moved in closer, as though waiting for the line that would close the distance between their respective mouths.

"You forgot to return my snacks," was all she came up with.

"You…" A broad hand framed her face, almost absently. "You changed everything."

She blinked. "I what now?"

Erik flinched, as though he hadn't meant for her to hear. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet. "I mean only that I will never shake off the image of you, with your wet hair and your bad ankle, holding an umbrella over my head as I worked." He frowned. "It was the strangest feeling, to have—dear  _God,_ how are your feet so cold?"

Beneath the covers, her feet had found his bare legs and burrowed under their warmth.

She shrugged. "I told you, poor circulation. You were saying? The strangest feeling?"

"To have someone concerned for my well-being." He paused, sighed, and added, "Someone besides Nadir, at any rate."

A dozen responses collected and dissolved at the tip of her tongue. Absent their cooperation, she squeezed his hand.

He exhaled slowly. "Perhaps we ought to face the day."

There was a clawing at her chest as he released her, and when he moved to the edge of the bed to slide on his jeans, she watched until he reached the belt buckle before turning away to dress herself.

"What about Nadir?" she asked when they'd finished. Her stomach flipped at the thought.

"Given my knowledge of his previous exploits," he replied, "he is in no position to judge." Still, she made Erik exit the room first, such that he'd bear the brunt of the staring if Nadir was, in fact, awake.

And he was. He sat in the avocado-green chair opposite the bedroom and peered up from his laptop at the sound of the creaking door, one corner of his mouth quirking back as the pair emerged.

"Not a word," Erik intoned.

A pair of dark hands shot up in deference. "None intended," said Nadir, "except that there's coffee."

Breakfast was a quiet affair, the cabin taking on an almost funereal air as Christine proceeded to pack up her belongings. Erik ducked out ahead of her to put a snowplow on his truck, clearing a path out to the main road while Christine and Nadir watched through the living-room window.

"This feels like the end of something," she said. Caesar had sprawled next to her on the sofa, his head pressed into her thigh, and she rubbed at his velvet-soft ears.

"No," said Nadir, who stood at the window with a fresh mug of coffee. His gaze followed the truck. "It feels like a beginning." He glanced back at her, his eyes bright. "The first signs of life in the ash."

Erik met Christine by the door just as she'd zipped up her coat. He looked as though he had everything and nothing to say all at once, so she was quick to speak first and spare him. "I know I have no right to ask any favors of you at this point," she began, "but—"

"Anything," he cut her off. "What would you have me do?"

* * *

The steep driveway down to the riverside cottage was blanketed in snow, and Christine was grateful for Erik's truck. She would never have been able to manage the incline in her sedan. As it was, the car was parked outside her motel, and he'd followed in order to drive her here.

It had been a good reason to ask for his company in closing up the cottage, but more than that, she needed someone to bear witness.

They stood in the yard and gazed down the sharp bank into the rippling current. She had never seen the property in the snow. Though every crunch of their footfalls echoed across the water, the scene felt emptily quiet.

"Once, when I was a kid," she said, "my dad and I were eating breakfast in there"—she pointed to the big kitchen window, trimmed with empty flower boxes—"and we saw a sopping-wet bobcat come up the steps from the river. It just sauntered off into the woods, like it had finished a leisurely swim." They both glanced at the stair landing, as though expecting a wildcat to appear.

"This is a beautiful piece of property," Erik said.

She smiled wanly. "You should see it at sunset."

He pulled her to his chest when the tears began to fall, keeping a safe and wordless embrace as she cried softly into his jacket.

He'd moved to stroking her hair by the time the sniffles subsided. "You will move forward," he assured her. Down below, the steely water gurgled as if to lead by example. Nature always forged ahead.

Spirits lifting ever so slightly, she told him about the eagle.

He ended up staying to help her close up the cottage, despite her protests. They heated up more of the frozen meals for lunch, after which the fridge was cleaned, the electronics unplugged, the chimney closed up and the water turned off. When everything was finished, she stood at the threshold and surveyed the dimly lit space.

Her whole life she'd mourned the absence of playmates there, longed for the big families she saw floating past in groups of inner tubes and canoes, their raucous laughter echoing up and down the river. Now she saw it as Erik might: a sanctuary, a quiet enclave where there was no one to judge and the snow fell softly on the pines.

Another shift in perspective, and she saw it as it had been: the summer retreat where a young Christine had learned to swim and forage and build fires and treat poison ivy, and had learned—but perhaps later forgotten—to enjoy her own company and assert her independence.

It had been, too, a place where father and daughter grew close. Things had been good between them then.

No—things had been good between them later, too. She felt it in her gut, heard it in her father's voice even as she told him she was too busy with work to see him that particular weekend. She'd allowed a lapse, yes, but she'd had no control over the disease intersecting that lapse, or his secrecy surrounding it.

Maybe, just maybe, forgiveness was attainable.

They rode back to the motel in silence. What was there left to say? All that she could muster was expressed as she and Erik shared a gentle embrace in the parking lot. "Thank you," she whispered, "for everything."

He peered down at her from his great height, eyes dark but alight. A hand cupped her cheek, and she leaned into it, closing her eyes at the press of dry lips to her brow.

And then he was gone.

* * *

It stunned her, how wholly he'd consumed her in such a short time.

As a result, her new apartment—with its bare walls and boxes half unpacked—felt even emptier upon her return. She promptly heaved her suitcase onto the bed, sank to the floor, and cried—not specifically for Erik, nor her father, nor for anything, really—except, perhaps, to mourn the passing of some part of her life she'd clung to for far too long.

She allowed herself to wallow for the better part of the weekend: copious binge-watches of overdramatized crime shows, a few orders from the Thai restaurant she'd missed so much, cutesy puzzle games that required in-app purchases to be enjoyable but that she played nonetheless.

But on Monday, she found a therapist. Nadir's words had nested in the back of her mind:  _The first signs of life in the ash._

She did, of course, seek out Meg and Raoul soon after. But when she wasn't with them—which was more often than not, these days—she attempted to settle into this next stage of her life. She fell into old diaries and pictures, letting the memories of her father wash over her, laughing and crying in their wake. And as she unpacked and organized and decorated, she recounted Erik's cabin, and all the things that had made it feel like a home, even in his solitude.

Meanwhile, he met her with radio silence.

She knew she ought to respect his wishes, and his privacy, so she did not prod. But she did, as a gesture of seasonal goodwill, send him a card two weeks before Christmas. In it, she wished him well and extended her greetings to Caesar and the hens. It went unanswered.

In the meantime, she was content enough to distract herself with preparations for her return to teaching after the holidays, and with the season's festivities. She put up the artificial tree and ornaments from her childhood home, and she set out her stocking, and she waited for Christmas with equal parts anticipation and dread.

Meg had insisted she join them for Christmas Day, and Christine was only too happy to accept. But when Christmas Eve arrived, she was left to her own devices to weather her first Noel without her father.

The day was uneventful, save for two dozen freshly baked cookies. When evening fell, she changed into fleece leggings and slippers and an oversized sweater that fell off one shoulder. Her hair she put up in a messy bun. She lit candles and curled up on the living-room sofa with her Chinese takeout and wine, admiring the warm glow of the tree lights as she streamed  _Elf_  not for the first time that week. And not for the first time that week, she was happy.

She missed her father so much it hurt, yet she was happy.

She hoped, distantly, that Erik was content as well.

Halfway through the movie, her phone buzzed against the coffee table.  _Merry Christmas,_  it said.  _Join me for a walk?_

Christine paused the film and sat motionless, blinking down at the text. Her brain fired off a thousand questions at once, and she'd typed and deleted several before another message appeared.

 _Downstairs_.

There would be time for questions later. She threw on her coat and boots and, her heart hammering the whole way, walked out to the front of her building.

There had been no snow for weeks, but now the flakes fell like confetti, dancing in the streetlight as though courting. White lights twinkled up and down either side of the avenue, wrapped around rows of barren red maples. But it was the patch of darkness against all that white that lifted her spirits most.

Everything was as she remembered: the black shell jacket, with gloved hands stuffed into the pockets; the dark jeans and boots; the surgical mask. But there was something different about those dark eyes, that rigid posture. It was as though their sharp edges had eroded.

Memory catapulted her back to when she'd last seen him standing in the falling snow: that afternoon of confrontations and revelations and snow-fighting and near-kisses.

At the sight of her, Erik swallowed. "Good evening," he said, his baritone as slick as ever. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat, where it lodged itself and fluttered erratically.

"How did you know where to find me?"

From his back pocket he produced the card she'd mailed him: a pair of deer, foraging in a twilit winter scene. "The same way I knew you were available this evening."

Her cheeks warmed.  _The new place is nice but not nearly as cozy as yours,_ she'd written.  _I'll be dreaming of those sweet-smelling fires when I'm home alone this Christmas Eve._ It was supposed to be a compliment; she hadn't meant it as an entreaty.

Or had she?

"Shall we?" he asked.

They walked, wordlessly at first, several blocks through the quiet neighborhood and into a nearby park. The tinkle of sleigh bells sounded from farther downtown, accompanied by faint holiday music that underscored this sudden companionship of the evening.

Christine couldn't bring herself to voice the question burning at the tip of her tongue. "Who's taking care of Caesar?" she asked instead. "And the chickens?"

"Nadir and Rookheeya. I do believe I pitched it as a romantic getaway."

"Oh, it definitely is," she replied, too quickly. Her cheeks flamed.

The corner of Erik's mouth twitched. "Good to know."

Fir and oak kept silent watch over the empty park as they cut a path through it, toward the small river that ran through town. Their boots crunched in the new-fallen snow. "This is pleasant enough," said Erik as they reached the water's edge. He stopped to pick up a stray piece of fishing line, rolling it between leather-capped fingers. "I confess, I had not entirely looked forward to the trip downstate, but this is"—he hesitated—"less overwhelming than anticipated."

She balled her hand into a tense fist at his evasiveness. "You could have called," she said, more icily than she'd intended.

"And what would I have said?" he replied. "I hardly know what to say now, Christine. I just—when it comes to sentimentalities, I—" He emitted a light huff of frustration, frowning at the fishing wire. Then his eyes softened, and he stretched some of the wire taut across one hand, plucking it with a finger to create a satisfying  _twang._

"The thing about music," he murmured, "about pitch, is that even when distance changes, there is still a vibration." He splayed his fingers to lengthen the segment of wire, and he plucked a deeper note this time. His eyes willed her to understand, but she needed him to say it.

"And?" she whispered.

"And I…" He hesitated. "I cannot get these reverberations of you out from under my skin."

She shivered, in the best of ways. "I think I know what you mean."

"I slept better with you there. Because you were there." His gaze strayed from hers as he pocketed the fishing line and started walking again. "And when I slept better, things felt different. Less insurmountable. It made me think that perhaps…" He swallowed. "Perhaps I do not always have to be this way."

They crossed the shadow of the treeline, a dark and leering parade of many-armed creatures. Christine eyed him warily. "You weren't so optimistic a month ago."

"I was," he said. "The moment we bid farewell."

Now it was her turn to stop walking. She looked up at him, incredulous, as a wistful sort of pain lanced her stomach. "You didn't say anything," she protested. "You didn't even text."

"I nearly turned the truck around," he replied, his jaw tight. "I sought to be the best version of myself with you, Christine. I booked an appointment with a veterans therapist the very next day. Perhaps my avoidance was callous, in hindsight, but…"

"You saw a therapist?"

"Several times. A three-hour round trip, I might add, thanks to the paltry state of mental health care upstate."

She was agape. "And?"

Erik looked down at his boots. "You will be pleased to know the worst of the shed has been purged. The paranoia, I fear, still abounds." Still shrinking from her gaze, he kicked at the snow. "Though I suppose my ability to identify it as such is some measure of progress."

"You had good reason to be paranoid," she said, frowning, but he shook his head.

"Perhaps my concerns were valid half a decade ago, but I am told interest has shifted." Snow was collecting in his hair, and she resisted the urge to brush it off. "Regardless, it seems my past has had more of an effect on my waking hours than I previously cared to admit."

This was good, she told herself. This was incredible progress. This meant...what did it mean?

He was much closer all of a sudden, the gap between them narrow and shaky. "If I recall correctly," he said, peering down at her, "grief had not been so kind to you when we last spoke."

She swallowed. "And?"

"And I wanted to see you for myself. To be certain I was not...an imposition."

She straightened and faced him square on. "How do I look, then?"

"Like you could eat me alive, should I commit one more misstep." A hint of a smile played at his lips, and he brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. "Brava, Miss Daae."

Coyly, she raised an eyebrow. "I was partly inspired by your solitude, you know."

"Hardly a feat."

"It  _is_. You're so comfortable in your own company. You don't rely on anyone."

He tilted his head just so, and his voice softened. "Ah, but who's to say that's for the best?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. He was eyeing said mouth too attentively, licking his lips, and all manner of thought ceased in her head.

He unzipped his jacket halfway and, from the inner lining, withdrew a crumpled paper bag. "Lest you think you ever escaped my thoughts," he said, and handed her the package.

Inside were the hand-carved figurines from his kitchen: bear, owl, fox. But there were new ones, too: a broad-winged eagle taking flight, and a dog, and a chicken. She ran her thumb over the dog's boxy face and looked up at Erik. "Is this—?"

"Caesar, yes," he answered. "And one of the hens. Whichever one invokes the least trauma." There was a wry curl to his mouth, but it melted into something more somber. "I thought, perhaps, a few tokens of remembrance might suffice when"—he paused, his gaze now a question—"when I'm not here."

Her breath hitched. The hand with the bag sank to her side, and she moved a step closer. "And how often will that be?"

He closed the distance even more, so that she could feel his breath as he replied, "I'm not sure, but I suspect something could be arranged." His voice had dipped so low and sultry she could barely stand it. "The drive is not so terrible, for a weekend's stay, and I do work remotely…"

She found the hem of his jacket, rolling the fabric between her fingers. "And I have summers off," she reminded him. "There's time to sort things out."

A broad palm cupped her face, its calluses dry and cool and anchoring. "You are just as lovely as I remember," Erik murmured. With his other hand, he tugged at the tie securing her bun until the whole mess of curls tumbled loose. "There," he said, snaking his fingers through the strands. "Now you look almost as you did when we first met."

His whole body tensed when her own fingers slid beneath the edge of his mask, but he put up no resistance. She pulled it over his head and stuffed it into a coat pocket, smiling as she smoothed back his newly ruffled hair. "Likewise."

There was a tug at her own hair, and he smirked. "Just run this under the faucet a few times, and we'll have a spitting image."

"Wildman," she teased, angling her face up to him.

"River rat."

His mouth fell on hers with easy abandon, and she wanted to cry and laugh and yell all at once, but instead she wound a tight grip around his neck and kissed him harder. His arms found her waist with equal strength. There would be no letting go this time.

It was only a minute later, having parted with heated lips and flushed cheeks, that Christine realized she'd dropped the figurines in the snow. She scooped up the bag before it could disintegrate against the wet ground. "Oh! I know just where to put these," she announced delightedly.

It was only after many welcome interruptions that she admired Erik's gift from afar, when she lay with him in a tangle of warm limbs beneath flannel sheets, her head nestled in the crook of his arm. "You should carve a bird next," she said. "Maybe a warbler."

The other animals peered out from their new resting place on a decorative wall shelf, one she'd already strewn with pretty river rocks and dried flowers and the previously gifted deer carving. Above it all was a large framed photo, taken from just outside the Daae cottage: the sun setting over the riverbend in a spectacular display of rose and gold.

"A warbler," murmured Erik, tracing the downy hairs of her arm, "or perhaps a nightingale."

She was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In loving memory of my grandmother, whose cabin on the river inspired this story.


End file.
